- A Simple Temperature Conversion Program
- Building a Temperature Class
- Putting the Decisions into the Temperature Class
- Using Classes for Format and Value Conversion
- A String Tokenizer Class
- Classes as Objects
- Class Initialization
- Classes and Properties
- Another Interface Example·The Voltmeter
- A vbFile Class
- Programming Style in Visual Basic
- Summary
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
A String Tokenizer Class
A number of languages provide a simple method for dividing strings into tokens separated by a specified character. While VB does not provide a class for this feature, we can write one quite easily using the little-known Split function. The goal of the Tokenizer class will be to pass in a string and obtain the successive string tokens back one at a time. For example, if we had the simple string
Now is the time
our tokenizer should return four tokens.
Now is the time
The critical part of this class is that it holds the initial string and remembers which token is to be returned next.
We could write this class using the Instr function, or we could use the Split function, which approximates the Tokenizer but returns an array of substrings instead of having a class interface. The class we want to write will have a nextToken method that returns string tokens or a zero length string when we reach the end of the series of tokens.
The whole class is shown here.
'String tokenizer class Private s As String, i As Integer Private sep As String 'token separator Private stokens() As String 'array of tokens Public Sub init(ByVal st As String) s = st setSeparator " " End Sub Private Sub Class_Initialize() sep = " " 'default is a space separator End Sub Public Sub setSeparator(ByVal sp As String) sep = sp stokens = Split(s, sp) i = -1 End Sub Public Function nextToken() As String Dim tok As String If i < UBound(stokens) Then i = i + 1 tok = stokens(i) Else tok = "" End If nextToken = tok 'return token End Function
The class is illustrated in use in Figure 3-5.
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Figure 3-5. The tokenizer in use
This is the code that uses the Tokenizer class.
Private Sub Tokenize_Click() Dim tok As New Tokenizer Dim s As String tok.init txString.Text 'set the string from the input lsTokens.Clear 'clear the list box s = tok.nextToken 'get a token While Len(s) > 0 'as long as not of zero length lsTokens.AddItem s 'add into the list s = tok.nextToken 'and look for next token Wend End Sub