Wildcard search of dictionary

Question

After searching google and SO, I see that there is a way for me to search a dictionary for an existing key:

dict.exists(\"search string\")

Answer 1

The Dictionary Items method returns an array of all the items. You can Join those into a big string then use Instr() to determine if your search string is in the big string.

From your example, you have the asterisk at the end, so I'm assuming you care how an item starts, not that a sub-string exists anywhere. So I look for delimiter+substring and add the delimiter to the front of the Join (for the sake of the first item). If you have different requirements, you'll have to adjust, but the theory is the same.

I used two pipes as a delimiter because it's unlikely to be in the data and return a false positive. That may not be appropriate for your data.

Public Function WildExists(ByRef dc As Scripting.Dictionary, ByVal sSearch As String) As Boolean        
    Const sDELIM As String = "||"        
    WildExists = InStr(1, sDELIM & Join(dc.Keys, sDELIM), sDELIM & sSearch) > 0        
End Function

test code

Sub Test()

    Dim dc As Scripting.Dictionary            
    Set dc = New Scripting.Dictionary

    dc.Add "Apple", "Apple"
    dc.Add "Banana", "Banana"
    dc.Add "Pear", "Pear"

    Debug.Print WildExists(dc, "App") 'true
    Debug.Print WildExists(dc, "Ora") 'false

End Sub