How to split a string with multiple delimiters in vba excel?

Question

I want to split a string with multiple delimiters using Excel VBA. One of the strings is:

d1-d2 d3 d4  

We have a dash and a space as tw

Answer 1

I'll add that I had a quick look at Chip Pearson's answer, and thought it could be improved a little in terms of performance, so I wrote my own which appears to be about 40% faster (feel free to test yourself). It's faster (1.0E-5 vs 1.7E-5 seconds per cycle) because it uses byte arrays rather than actual characters to compare values. Here's the function which returns a string array like Chip Pearson's:

Function SplitMultiDelims2(Text As String, DelimChars As String) As String()
    '''
    'Function to split a string at multiple charachters
    'Use like SplitMultiDelims2("This:is-a,test string", ":-,")
    'Returns an array, in that example SplitMultiDelims2("This:is-a,test string", ":-,")(4) would be "test string"
    '''
    Dim bytes() As Byte
    Dim delims() As Byte
    Dim i As Long, aub As Long, ub As Long
    Dim stack As String
    Dim t() As String
    Dim tLen As Long
    tLen = Len(Text)
    If tLen = 0 Then
        Exit Function
    End If
    ReDim t(1 To tLen)                           'oversize array to avoid Redim Preserve too often
    bytes = StrConv(Text, vbFromUnicode)
    delims = StrConv(DelimChars, vbFromUnicode)
    ub = UBound(bytes)
    For i = 0 To ub
        If Contains(delims, bytes(i)) Then
            aub = aub + 1
            t(aub) = stack
            stack = ""
        Else
            stack = stack & Chr(bytes(i))
        End If
    Next i
    t(aub + 1) = stack
    ReDim Preserve t(1 To aub + 1)               'Works marginally faster if you delete this line,
    'however it returns an oversized array (which is a problem if you use UBOUND of the result,
    'but fine if you are just looking up an indexed value like the 5th string)
    SplitMultiDelims2 = t
End Function

'and a 2nd function called by the first one
Function Contains(arr, v As Byte) As Boolean     'checks if Byte v is contained in Byte array arr
    Dim rv As Boolean, lb As Long, ub As Long, i As Long
    lb = LBound(arr)
    ub = UBound(arr)
    For i = lb To ub
        If arr(i) = v Then
            rv = True
            Exit For
        End If
    Next i
    Contains = rv
End Function

Here's the test log (his is SplitMultiDelims, mine is SplitMultiDelims2)

> SplitMultiDelims: 1.76105267188204E-05s per cycle 'this is the important figure
> i = 568064 iterations in 10.00390625 seconds
>Test completed: 08/06/2017 10:23:22
> SplitMultiDelims2: 1.05756701906142E-05s per cycle
>i = 947044 iterations in 10.015625 seconds
>Test completed: 08/06/2017 10:23:32
> SplitMultiDelims2: 1.04176859354441E-05s per cycle
>i = 960656 iterations in 10.0078125 seconds
>Test completed: 08/06/2017 10:23:54
> SplitMultiDelims: 1.76228941673255E-05s per cycle
>i = 567887 iterations in 10.0078125 seconds
>Test completed: 08/06/2017 10:24:04

Run in both directions to avoid memory writing handicaps

Test code below uses Timer so not overly precise, but good enough to demonstrate the difference

Sub testSplit()
    Dim t As Double, dt As Double
    Dim s As String
    Dim i As Long
    t = Timer: i = 0: dt = 0: s = ""
    Do Until dt > 10                             'loop for 10 seconds
        s = SplitMultiDelims("This:is-a,test string", ":-,")(1)
        dt = Timer - t
        i = i + 1
    Loop
    Debug.Print "SplitMultiDelims: " & dt / i & "s per cycle" & vbCrLf & "i = " & i; " iterations in " & dt; " seconds" & vbCrLf & "Test completed: " & Now
    t = Timer: i = 0: dt = 0: s = ""
    Do Until dt > 10                             'loop for 10 seconds
        s = SplitMultiDelims2("This:is-a,test string", ":-,")(1)
        dt = Timer - t
        i = i + 1
    Loop
    Debug.Print "SplitMultiDelims2: " & dt / i & "s per cycle" & vbCrLf & "i = " & i; " iterations in " & dt; " seconds" & vbCrLf & "Test completed: " & Now
End Sub