tech on the net

MS Excel: INSTR Function (VBA)

In Microsoft Excel, the INSTR function returns the position of the first occurrence of a substring in a string.

Syntax

The syntax for the INSTR function is:

InStr( [start], string, substring, [compare] )

start is optional. It is the starting position for the search. If this parameter is omitted, the search will begin at position 1.

string is the string to search within.

substring is the substring that you want to find.

compare is optional. It is the type of comparison to perform. It can be one of the following values:

VBA Constant Value Explanation
vbUseCompareOption -1 Uses option compare
vbBinaryCompare 0 Binary comparison
vbTextCompare 1 Textual comparison
vbDatabaseCompare 2 Comparison based on your database

Applies To

Type of Function

VBA Function Example

The INSTR function can only be used in VBA code. Here are some examples of what the INSTR function would return:

InStr(1, "Tech on the Net", "the") would return 9
InStr("Tech on the Net", "the") would return 9
InStr(10, "Tech on the Net", "t") would return 15

For example:

Dim LPosition As Integer

LPosition = InStr(10, "Tech on the Net", "t")

In this example, the variable called LPosition would now contain the value 15.