Problems with StringMid

[IanABoys]

I'm having trouble with the StringMid function. I'm placing data on the clipboard and then searching that data for a specific string and extracting a part of the data relative to the search string. The problem is StringMid is returning the numeric value of the string, not the string itself. Any ideas?

$data = ClipGet()

; Result "Other data then Patient ID: 12345678"

; Now search for a marker within that data

$instr = StringInStr($data,"Patient ID :",2)

; Grab the data from just after the search string

$data2 = StringMid($data,$instr+12,8)

;Gets 8 characters that just happens to be numbers and so call it a number when it's not

MsgBox(1,"Info",$data2*2)

;Works, multiplies what should be a string by 2

[Malkey]

I'm having trouble with the StringMid function. I'm placing data on the clipboard and then searching that data for a specific string and extracting a part of the data relative to the search string. The problem is StringMid is returning the numeric value of the string, not the string itself. Any ideas?

$data = ClipGet()

; Result "Other data then Patient ID: 12345678"

; Now search for a marker within that data

$instr = StringInStr($data,"Patient ID :",2)

; Grab the data from just after the search string

$data2 = StringMid($data,$instr+12,8)

;Gets 8 characters that just happens to be numbers and so call it a number when it's not

MsgBox(1,"Info",$data2*2)

;Works, multiplies what should be a string by 2

From the AutoIt help file:-

Language Reference - Datatypes
In AutoIt there is only one datatype called a Variant. A variant can contain numeric or string data
and decides how to use the data depending on the situation it is being used in. For example, if you
try and multiply two variants they will be treated as numbers, if you try and concatenate (join) two
variants they will be treated as strings.

Some examples:

10 * 20 equals the number 200 (* is used to multiply two numbers)

10 * "20" equals the number 200

"10" * "20" equals the number 200

10 & 20 equals the string "1020" (& is used to join strings)

StringMid is returing a string. The "$data2*2" returns a number.

Also, if "Other data then Patient ID: 12345678" is copied to clipboard and the script is run, then " $instr = StringInStr($data,"Patient ID :",2)" will not return the position of the substring because of the absence or presence of the space between "ID" and ":".

[BrewManNH]

Your whole problem isn't the string conversion issue, it's because there's no match found so it gets you the 8 characters from 12th through 20th characters from the string, and not what you're looking for. It's all about the space in your search string that shouldn't be there.

Edited October 31, 2012 by BrewManNH

[somdcomputerguy]

Is this what you're trying to get?

#include <String.au3>
$sVar = "Other data then Patient ID: 12345678"
$aVar = _StringBetween($sVar, 'ID: ', '')
MsgBox(0, '', $aVar[0] * 2)

[guinness]

Or without using _StringBetween >>

Local Const $sString = 'Other data then Patient ID: 12345678'
Local $iNumber = Number(StringRegExpReplace($sString, 'D', ''))
MsgBox(4096, '', $iNumber * 2)

[IanABoys]

Thanks, I'm a but new to this so I didn't realise the variable type were a bit loose compared to what I'm used to. All sorted.