Hard Question Need help... (Parsing)

[vbman213]

Ok basicly here is what I need to do... I have a string that is being generated by a server... it looks like this...

[14:19:05] Connecting to rstalk.no-ip.org:8767
[14:19:05] Connected to server ..::Runescape Talk::..
[14:19:05] Welcome To Runescape Talk, [http://www.runescape.com/]!
[14:19:05] *priv* : ~~~ [ WELCOME ] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[14:19:05] *priv* : Hello Chris <SSA - 85/99 Fletch>! Welcome to the ..::Runescape Talk::...
[14:19:05] *priv* :
[14:19:05] *priv* : Please note that your IP address 24.31.114.189 has been logged.
[14:19:05] *priv* : Your current Ping delay is about 45 ms.
[14:19:05] *priv* : The server detected that 0% of your UDP packets get lost.
[14:19:05] *priv* : ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [ WELCOME ] ~~~
[14:19:11] Guest1 quit
[14:19:18] *priv* skill.bot: Hey
[14:19:25] *priv* SERVER: Client "Jake" got kicked from Server by "superadmin", reason "no recording"
[14:19:25] Jake was kicked from the server by player (no recording)
[14:19:31] Jake joined channel
[14:19:31] *priv* SERVER: Client "Jake" got kicked from Server by "superadmin", reason "no recording"
[14:19:31] Jake was kicked from the server by player (no recording)

it is showing the status of my TeamSpeak Server... you dont need to know anything about TS to answer my question


about half way down in the example is this

*priv* skill.bot: Hey

I need my textbox to display the most recent *priv* skill.bot: and nothing else...

so some parsing is going to be required I just cant figure it out


this string is always updating... so it may include more than one ( *priv* skill.bot adfdf ) string....

I just need the textbox to return the instance that is the farthest away from the beginning of the string... aka the newest one

[Ellis Dee]

I'm heading out so I can't give you a fleshed out and debugged solution, but it's fairly straightforward:

Public Function LastSkillBotMessage(pstrMessages As String) As String
    Const FindString = "*priv* skill.bot:"
    Dim strMsg() As String
    Dim lngPos As Long
    Dim i As Long

    strMsg = Split(pstrMessages, vbNewLine)
    For i = 0 to Ubound(strMsg)
        lngPos = InStr(strMsg(i), FindString) 
        If lngPos <> 0 Then
            lngPos = lngPos + Len(FindString)
            LastSkillBotMessage = Mid$(strMsg(i), lngPos, Len(strMsg(i) - lngPos - 2)
            Exit Function
        End If
    Next
End Function

You may need to tweak this, but the basic idea is there.

[Merri]

    Dim lngPos As Long, lngLastPos As Long
    lngLastPos = InStr(strBuffer, "*priv* skill.bot:")
    Do Until lngLastPos < 1
        lngPos = lngLastPos
        lngLastPos = InStr(lngLastPos + 1, strBuffer, "*priv* skill.bot:")
    Loop
    If lngPos > 0 Then
        lngLastPos = InStr(lngPos, strBuffer, vbNewLine)
        If lngLastPos < 1 Then lngLastPos = Len(strBuffer)
        MsgBox Mid$(strBuffer, lngPos, lngLastPos - lngPos)
    Else
        MsgBox "No message from skill.bot"
    End If

That should get you started.

[vbman213]

Ok thanks... now I need to remove spaces in the output...

so like I get "username ", I need it to be "username"

I tryed replace() but that didint work...



when I have the textbox on multiline it looks like this

username

but when it is on normal it looks like this

username||

I need to remove those

[MartinLiss]

You can use RTrim() or Trim() to get rid of the trailing space. The || is probably vbCrLf and you could use Replace() to replace it with spaces.

[DigiRev]

If I understand correctly, wouldn't the quickest way be to use the InstrRev() function since you're searching from the end of the text (last message from *priv* bot)?

Like this (didn't test it):

Option Explicit

Private Sub Form_Load()
    'Use it like:
    Dim strBot As String
    
    strBot = LastBotSpeak(Text1.Text)
End Sub

Private Function LastBotSpeak(ByRef Text As String) As String
    Dim lonStart As Long, lonSLen As Long
    Dim lonEnd As Long
    
    lonStart = InStrRev(Text, "*priv* skill.bot:")
    lonSLen = 17 'Length of *priv* skill.bot:
    
    If lonStart > 0 Then
        lonStart = lonStart + lonSLen
        lonEnd = InStr(lonStart, Text, vbCrLf)
        
        If lonEnd > 0 Then
            LastBotSpeak = Mid$(Text, lonStart, lonEnd - lonStart)
        End If
    End If
    
End Function

[Merri]

DigiRev: it would if InStrRev wasn't coded badly. It is slow, and that is because it reverses the strings before searching (instead of just handling data in different direction, which would be faster in an order of magnitude). So most often InStr wins in speed even when what is to be found is at the end of the buffer. Plus the length of code isn't really that big (as you can see from my code example in comparison to what you posted).

[DigiRev]

DigiRev: it would if InStrRev wasn't coded badly. It is slow, and that is because it reverses the strings before searching (instead of just handling data in different direction, which would be faster in an order of magnitude).

Oh man wish I had known that.

Also I could have condensed my code to something a lot shorter, but it's one of my OCDs...

I have a way of formatting code that takes up a lot of space but it looks neat and clean to me. I spend half my time programming actually making code look neater. :/

[Merri]

Readable code is more important than compact code