VBScript Strings

last modified February 19, 2025

In this article, we will learn how to work with strings in VBScript. Strings are sequences of characters used to represent text. We will use WScript.Echo to output results and run the scripts using cscript.

Hello message

The first example demonstrates how to create and display a string.

simple_string.vbs

Dim message message = “Hello there!”

WScript.Echo message

This example declares a string variable message and assigns it the value “Hello there!”. The string is then displayed using WScript.Echo.

Concatenating Strings

You can concatenate strings using the & operator.

concatenate_strings.vbs

Dim firstName, lastName, fullName firstName = “John” lastName = “Doe” fullName = firstName & " " & lastName

WScript.Echo fullName

This example concatenates two strings firstName and lastName to create a full name.

String Length

You can determine the length of a string using the Len function.

string_length.vbs

Dim text text = “VBScript”

WScript.Echo “Length: " & Len(text)

This example calculates and displays the length of the string text.

Substrings

You can extract a substring from a string using the Mid function.

substring.vbs

Dim sentence, substring sentence = “The quick brown fox” substring = Mid(sentence, 5, 5)

WScript.Echo “Substring: " & substring

This example extracts a substring starting at position 5 with a length of 5 characters.

String Comparison

You can compare strings using the = operator or the StrComp function.

string_comparison.vbs

Dim str1, str2 str1 = “apple” str2 = “Apple”

If StrComp(str1, str2, vbTextCompare) = 0 Then WScript.Echo “Strings are equal.” Else WScript.Echo “Strings are not equal.” End If

This example compares two strings case-insensitively using StrComp.

String Replacement

You can replace parts of a string using the Replace function.

string_replacement.vbs

Dim original, replaced original = “I like apples.” replaced = Replace(original, “apples”, “oranges”)

WScript.Echo replaced

This example replaces the word “apples” with “oranges” in the string original.

String Splitting

You can split a string into an array using the Split function.

string_splitting.vbs

Dim data, parts, part data = “apple,banana,cherry” parts = Split(data, “,”)

For Each part In parts WScript.Echo part Next

This example splits the string data into an array using a comma as the delimiter and outputs each part.

String Trimming

You can remove leading and trailing spaces from a string using the Trim, LTrim, and RTrim functions.

string_trimming.vbs

Dim untrimmed, trimmed untrimmed = " VBScript " trimmed = Trim(untrimmed)

WScript.Echo “Trimmed: ‘” & trimmed & “’”

This example trims leading and trailing spaces from the string untrimmed.

String Case Conversion

You can convert a string to uppercase or lowercase using the UCase and LCase functions.

string_case_conversion.vbs

Dim mixedCase, upperCase, lowerCase mixedCase = “VBScript” upperCase = UCase(mixedCase) lowerCase = LCase(mixedCase)

WScript.Echo “Uppercase: " & upperCase WScript.Echo “Lowercase: " & lowerCase

This example converts the string mixedCase to uppercase and lowercase.

String Searching

You can search for a substring within a string using the InStr function.

string_searching.vbs

Dim mainString, searchString, position mainString = “The quick brown fox” searchString = “brown” position = InStr(mainString, searchString)

WScript.Echo “Position: " & position

This example searches for the substring “brown” within the string mainString and returns its position.

In this article, we explored how to work with strings in VBScript. We covered creating strings, concatenation, length, substrings, comparison, replacement, splitting, trimming, case conversion, and searching. Strings are fundamental to many programming tasks, and VBScript provides a rich set of functions to manipulate them.

Author

My name is Jan Bodnar, and I am a passionate programmer with extensive programming experience. I have been writing programming articles since 2007. To date, I have authored over 1,400 articles and 8 e-books. I possess more than ten years of experience in teaching programming.

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