Is that possible? Probably not? How can I then find all exact occurrences of a match and the according page numbers?
EDIT:
I have the regex working properly. What I need is for each match to get all the pages it appears on.
Example:
regex = \b\d{3}\b
123 appears on page 1,4,20
243 appear on page 3,5,7
523 appears on page 9
How can I get that information (all the pages a match occurs on?)
This is for creating some kind of index automatically.
EDIT 2:
I got a basic working version, snippet:
Set Matches = regExp.Execute(ActiveDocument.range.Text)
For Each Match In Matches
Set range = ActiveDocument.range(Match.FirstIndex, Match.FirstIndex + Len(Match.Value))
page = range.Information(wdActiveEndAdjustedPageNumber)
The problem is that Match.FirstIndex does not always point to the first character of the match in ActiveDocument.range. Word tables mess this up as ActiveDocument.range.Text contains characters that are not on the text put represent something in the table.
This turned out to be rather complex and I can't say if my solution works for any document. The main issue is as indicated in the Question, that RegexMatch.FirstIndex can not be used to determine were the actually Match is within the MS Word Document. This is due to the fact that regex matching is done on range.Text property (String) and that string just contains different amount of characters than the range object does and hence Indexes don't match.
So my solution is for each match, I do a Find in the whole document for that match. the find methods gives a Range object from which the correct page can be determined.
In my special case a match could be the same thing also different value. Example: 343in my case would be the same as Prefix-343. A second issue was that the matches must be sorted eg 123before 324regardless which one occurs first in the document.
If you require the Sort Functionality you will also need the following to "modules":
SortDictionary Function:
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/CollectionsAndDictionaries.htm
Module "modQSortInPlace":
http://www.cpearson.com/Zips/modQSortInPlace.zip
If no sort is needed you don't need them but you need to remove the according function call SortDictionary Dict, Truefrom my code.
Now to my code. Soem parts you can remove, especially the formatting one. This is specific to my case. Also if your match is "unique", eg. not prefix or so you can simplify the code too. You will need to reference the "Microsoft Scripting Library".
Option Explicit
Sub ExtractRNumbers()
Dim Dict As Scripting.Dictionary
Set Dict = CreateObject("Scripting.dictionary")
Dim regExp, Match, Matches
Dim rNumber As String
Dim range As range
Set regExp = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
regExp.Pattern = "\b(R-)?\d{2}-\d{4,5}(-\d)?\b"
regExp.IgnoreCase = False
regExp.Global = True
' determine main section, only extract R-Numbers from main section
' and not the Table of contents as example
' main section = section with most characters
Dim section As section
Dim maxSectionSize As Long
Dim sectionSize As Long
Dim sectionIndex As Integer
Dim currentIndex As Integer
maxSectionSize = 0
currentIndex = 1
For Each section In ActiveDocument.Sections
sectionSize = Len(section.range.text)
If sectionSize > maxSectionSize Then
maxSectionSize = sectionSize
sectionIndex = currentIndex
End If
currentIndex = currentIndex + 1
Next
Set Matches = regExp.Execute(ActiveDocument.Sections(sectionIndex).range.text)
For Each Match In Matches
' If the Document contains Tables, ActiveDocument.range.Text will contain
' BEL charachters (chr(7)) that probably define the table structure. The issue
' is that then Match.FirstIndex does not point to the actual first charachter
' of a Match in the Document.
' Also there are other things (unknwon) that lead to the same issue, eg.
' Match.FirstIndex can not be used to find the actual "matching word" within the
' document. Because of that below commented apporach does not work on a generic document
' Set range = ActiveDocument.range(Match.FirstIndex, Match.FirstIndex + Len(Match.Value))
' page = range.Information(wdActiveEndAdjustedPageNumber)
' Maybe there is a simpler solution but this works more or less
' the exception beign tables again. see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/274003
' After a match is found the whole document is searched using the find method.
' For each find result the page number is put into an array (if it is not in the array yet)
' Then the match is formatted properly.
' After formatting, it is checked if the match was previously already found
'
' If not, we add a new entry to the dictionary (key = formatted match, value = array of page numbers)
'
' If match was already found before (but potentially in a different format! eg R-87-1000 vs 87-1000 as example),
' all additional pages are added to the already found pages.
Set range = ActiveDocument.Sections(sectionIndex).range
With range.Find
.text = Match.Value
.MatchWholeWord = True
.MatchCase = True
.Wrap = wdFindStop
End With
Dim page As Variant
Dim pages() As Integer
Dim index As Integer
index = 0
ReDim pages(0)
Do While range.Find.Execute() = True
page = range.Information(wdActiveEndAdjustedPageNumber)
If Not IsInArray(page, pages) Then
ReDim Preserve pages(index)
pages(index) = page
index = index + 1
End If
Loop
' FORMAT TO PROPER R-NUMBER: This is specific to my case
rNumber = Match.Value
If Not rNumber Like "R-*" Then
rNumber = "R-" & rNumber
End If
' remove possible batch number as r-number
If Len(rNumber) > 11 Then
rNumber = Left(rNumber, Len(rNumber) - 2)
End If
' END FORMAT
If Not Dict.Exists(rNumber) Then
Dict.Add rNumber, pages
Else
Dim existingPages() As Integer
existingPages = Dict(rNumber)
For Each page In pages
If Not IsInArray(page, existingPages) Then
' add additonal pages. this means that the previous match
' was formatted different, eg R-87-1000 vs 87-1000 as example
ReDim Preserve existingPages(UBound(existingPages) + 1)
existingPages(UBound(existingPages)) = page
Dict(rNumber) = existingPages
End If
Next
End If
Next
'sort dictionary by key (R-Number)
SortDictionary Dict, True
Dim fso
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Dim stream
' Create a TextStream.
Set stream = fso.CreateTextFile(ActiveDocument.Path & "\" & ActiveDocument.Name & "-rNumbers.txt", True)
Dim key As Variant
Dim output As String
Dim i As Integer
For Each key In Dict.Keys()
output = key & vbTab
pages = Dict(key)
For i = LBound(pages) To UBound(pages)
output = output & pages(i) & ", "
Next
output = Left(output, Len(output) - 2)
stream.WriteLine output
Next
Set Dict = Nothing
stream.Close
End Sub
Private Function IsInArray(page As Variant, pages As Variant) As Boolean
Dim i As Integer
IsInArray = False
For i = LBound(pages) To UBound(pages)
If pages(i) = page Then
IsInArray = True
Exit For
End If
Next
End Function