If you want to call a COM library I use one called Funcky (www.funcky.com) which has a number of string parsing and manipulation routines.

Tevye Brown

>>>I'm working on a project where I need to shred a string (ala shredding and XML string) into a set of tables. The string is passed to me by a call to an *.OCX. The typical length of the string is 43K+ bytes. The string structure looks like this:
>>>
>>>Data-Pair /pair delimiter/ Data-Pair /pair delimiter/ etc.
>>>There are additional delimiters inside each data-pair. Essentially a data-pair consists of a delimited string that defines the schema and also separates the schema from the actual value. A Data-Pair ends up looking something like this:
>>>Grand-ParentField/Delimiter/ParentField/Delimiter/Field/Value Delimiter/Value.
>>>
>>>My "parsing" engine works, but it's very slow. (About 2-3 seconds per string on a PII 300 Mhz notebook.) I need to get down to sub-second times without simply buying a faster notebook. I'm working on enhancements to make the string shorter. But I'm also looking for a way to more efficiently pass through the string as I shred it. That's what this post is for. So far the most efficient method of parsing the string is this:
>>>
>>>Do While .T.
>>>DataPair = SubString( LongString, 1, At( , LongString )- 1 )
>>>* Parsing code goes here
>>>LongString = SubString( LongString, At( , LongString ) + 1 )
>>>If Len( LongString ) = 0
>>> Exit
>>>EndIf
>>>EndDo
>>>
>>>I've tried NextWord from foxtools, ( I'm running VFP 6 ) but it's actually slower than this approach is.
>>>
>>>Ideas anyone on a better way to work my way through the string?
>>
>>
>>
>>*------------------------------------------------------------------
>>i haven't actually tried this solution, but intuition tells me
>>that the string copy you do (LongString = SUBSTR(LongString...)
>>is the bottleneck. i'm guessing that behind the scene, a character
>>by character move is occuring.
>>
>>it would really be nice if AT had a fourth parameter that let
>>you specify the starting position from which to begin searching,
>>but it doesn't.
>>
>>instead of copying the remaining substring into LongString and
>>getting your new piece by using SUBSTR with a beginning index
>>of 1 ...
>>
>>keep the original string intact and keep track of a front pointer
>>and a locater pointer, thus eliminating the copy operation on 43Kb.
>>
>>Total_Length = LEN(ALLTRIM(Long_String)
>>Front_Pointer = 1
>>Locater_Pointer = AT(,Long_String)
>>WHILE ( Locater_Pointer > 0 )
>> This_Piece = SUBSTR ( Long_String , Front_Pointer , Locater_Pointer )
>>
>> Front_Pointer = Locater_Pointer + 1
>> Locater_Pointer = AT(,Long_String
>>ENDDO
>>
>>
>>interesting... think i'll put a timer around this and try it both
>>ways.
>>
>>good luck.
>
>
>
>oops ... please ignore that reply.
>i assumed the AT function had the 4 parameter.
>have you tried writing and calling a c function to the the AT ?