How to split the string that have the 3 character separator

Question

Dear All,

I was trying to split the string that contains the separators that have 3 characters. The current code uses substring, but if one or more strings have increased or decreased the number of characters will cause the result to not same as expected. Is there a way to split the string but not change the result regardless of whether the string length has changed?

String: (L)AAA ARX4 NN4-320088-RZZZ-00(S)01CE06233100041887(P)BBCCD881101606

tbxNumber1.Text = Curr_Number.Substring(54, 14)
tbxNumber2.Text = Curr_Number.Substring(3, 27)
tbxNumber3.Text = Curr_Number.Substring(33, 18)

Answer 1

Check an example:

Dim Curr_Number = "(L)AAA ARX4 NN4-320088-RZZZ-00(S)01CE06233100041887(P)BBCCD881101606"

tbxNumber1.Text = Regex.Match(Curr_Number, "(?<=\(P\)).*?(?=\(|$)").Value
tbxNumber2.Text = Regex.Match(Curr_Number, "(?<=\(L\)).*?(?=\(|$)").Value
tbxNumber3.Text = Regex.Match(Curr_Number, "(?<=\(S\)).*?(?=\(|$)").Value

Answer 2

There are some unexplained details of your task which need to be clarified before a robust solution can be suggested.

(1) Are the separator strings always the same?

(L) (S) (P)

Or are they sometimes different?

(2) Are the three separator strings always present in the string being parsed?

Or may there only be one or two? Or more than three?

(3) Do the separator characters always occur in the same order?

Or can they occur in any arbitrary order?

If you are not comfortable with the intricacies and syntax of Regex expressions, and assuming that there will always be the same three separator strings, and that they will always occur in the same order, then you can use the IndexOf method as in the following code example.

Dim xP As Integer = Curr_Number.IndexOf("(P)")
Dim xL As Integer = Curr_Number.IndexOf("(L)")
Dim xS As Integer = Curr_Number.IndexOf("(S)")

tbxNumber1.Text = Curr_Number.Substring(xP + 3)
tbxNumber2.Text = Curr_Number.Substring(xL + 3, xS - 3)
tbxNumber3.Text = Curr_Number.Substring(xS + 3, xP - 3 - xS)

Answer 3

Also try this:

Dim seps() = {"(P)", "(L)", "(S)"}
Dim subs() = Curr_Number.Split(seps, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)
 
tbxNumber1.Text = subs(2)
tbxNumber2.Text = subs(0)
tbxNumber3.Text = subs(1)