Search notes:

VBA operator: like

The VBa operatorlike allows to perform text-pattern matching. It is still far from regular expressions.

sub main()

    test "foo"
    test "foo bar"
    test "foo 999 bar baz"
    test "F"
    test "I"
    test "FOO BAR BAZ"
    test "42"

end sub

sub test(text)

    debug.print "text = " & text
    if text like "*bar*" then
       debug.print "  text contains bar"
    else
       debug.print "  text does not contain bar"
    end if

    if text like "*bar" then
       debug.print "  text ends in bar"
    else
       debug.print "  text does not end in bar"
    end if

    if text like "???" then
       debug.print "  text is three characters long"
    else
       debug.print "  text is not three characters long"
    end if

    if text like "*#*" then
       debug.print "  text contains at least a numeric character (digit)"
    else
       debug.print "  text does not contain a numeric character"
    end if

    if text like "[A-F]" then
       debug.print "  text is an uppercase letter between A and F"
    else
       debug.print "  text is not an uppercase letter between A and F"
    end if

end sub

Github repository about-VBA, path: /language/operators/like.bas

Escaping special characters

The four special characters ?, #, * and [ can be escaped by enclosing them into a pair of square brackets, for example [#].

It doesn't seem possible to escape the closing square bracket ] in a group - but it matches itself when used outside of a group.

VBA operator: like

Escaping special characters

See also