Delphi: Count the number of occurrences of a special string (wildcards) in document office

Question

I'm trying to count the total number of occurrences of a special string in a MS Word document. The search string is:(\{F)(*)(\}).

function CountOcc(SString:string): Integer;
var
   aFindText, aMatchCase,aWrap,AMatchWholeWord,aReplaceWith,aReplace: OleVariant;
   Result1: boolean
begin
   Result := False;
   aFindText := SString;
   aMatchCase := false;
   aMatchWholeWord := true;
   aWrap := wdFindContinue;
   aReplace:=wdReplaceNone;
   aMatchWildCards:=true;
   aReplaceWith:=SString;
   try
     Result1:=WordContainer.OleObject.ActiveWindow.Selection.Range.Find.Execute(
                aFindText
              , aMatchCase
              , aMatchWholeWord
              , aMatchWildCards
              , EmptyParam, EmptyParam, EmptyParam, aWrap, EmptyParam
              , aReplaceWith, aReplace
              , EmptyParam, EmptyParam,EmptyParam, EmptyParam);
   finally
     if Result1 then ........
   end;
end;

How do I get the number of occurrences of the search string?

and what is the question? You have posted the code. It is working? Do you have errors? We can not guess what you want to accomplish. — RBA, Sep 23 '13 at 08:57
When you speak of `winword.exe`, you normally use the product's official name: Microsoft Word. — Andreas Rejbrand, Sep 23 '13 at 09:30

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:31

There are two options:

Option 1
One is to use your code and loop until you can no longer find occurrences. See the vba code from the this site: http://wordribbon.tips.net/T010761_Generating_a_Count_of_Word_Occurrences.html

You'll have to translate the below code in Delphi.

Sub FindWords()
    Dim sResponse As String
    Dim iCount As Integer

    ' Input different words until the user clicks cancel
    Do
        ' Identify the word to count
        sResponse = InputBox( _
          Prompt:="What word do you want to count?", _
          Title:="Count Words", Default:="")

        If sResponse > "" Then
            ' Set the counter to zero for each loop
            iCount = 0
            Application.ScreenUpdating = False
            With Selection
                .HomeKey Unit:=wdStory
                With .Find
                    .ClearFormatting
                    .Text = sResponse
                    ' Loop until Word can no longer
                    ' find the search string and
                    ' count each instance
                    Do While .Execute
                        iCount = iCount + 1
                        Selection.MoveRight
                    Loop
                End With
                ' show the number of occurences
                MsgBox sResponse & " appears " & iCount & " times"
            End With
            Application.ScreenUpdating = True
        End If
    Loop While sResponse <> ""
End Sub

Option 2
The other option is to copy/paste the entire text to a Delphi string and search that.
If there are many occurrences, this may execute faster. See also: Delphi: count number of times a string occurs in another string

....
uses Clipbrd;
....

function Occurrences(const Substring, Text: string): integer; //thx Andries
var
  offset: integer;
begin
  result := 0;
  offset := PosEx(Substring, Text, 1);
  while offset <> 0 do
  begin
    inc(result);
    offset := PosEx(Substring, Text, offset + length(Substring));
  end;
end;

function GetCount(what: string): integer;
var
  CopyOfText: string;
  i: integer;
begin
  WordContainer.OleObject.ActiveWindow.SelectAll;
  WordContainer.OleObject.ActiveWindow.Copy;
  CopyOfText:= Clipboard.AsText;
  Result:= Occurrences(what, CopyOfText);
end;

The downside of the second approach, of course, is that it clobbers the clipboard. Isn't there another way of getting the textual contents of a Word document? — Rob Kennedy, Sep 23 '13 at 19:15
Yes, you can get the text directly from Word. But the route via the clipboard strips out the Word markup codes, which helps with searching. — Johan, Sep 23 '13 at 19:20
See here here how to get the Word text without even using MS Word: http://delphi.cjcsoft.net/viewthread.php?tid=44160 — Johan, Sep 23 '13 at 19:22
thanks Johan - I can work with the second approach. Because its interesting to me only count the occurrences — Domenico Formoso, Sep 23 '13 at 22:27

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:13

A function to find the occurrences of a word and returns them in an array. see Word VBA Wildcard Search Match Il mio codice:

function TForm1.Esiste(SString:string): TArr;
var
   aFindText, aMatchWildCards, aMatchCase,aWrap,aMatchAllWordForms,
   AMatchWholeWord,aReplaceWith,aReplace,aForward: OleVariant;
   Count:integer;
   ris : TArr;
begin
   Count:=0;
   aFindText := SString;
   aForward:=True;
   aWrap := wdFindContinue;
   aMatchWildCards:=true;
   aMatchCase := false;
   aMatchWholeWord := true;
   aMatchAllWordForms:=false;
   aReplaceWith := '';
   aReplace:=wdReplaceNone;
   while WordApp.Selection.Range.Find.Execute(
                aFindText
              , aMatchCase
              , aMatchWholeWord
              , aMatchWildCards
              , EmptyParam, aMatchAllWordForms, aForward, aWrap, EmptyParam
              , aReplaceWith, aReplace
              , EmptyParam, EmptyParam,EmptyParam, EmptyParam) do begin
               Count:=count+1;
               SetLength(ris,Count);
               Ris[Count-1]:=WordApp.Selection.Text;
   end;
   Result:=Ris;
end;

generates an infinite loop while. If

..
aReplaceWith: = 'any text';
aReplace: = wdReplaceOne;
..

It always returns the first character of the document

(Ris [Count-1]: = WordApp.Selection.Text;)

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Delphi: Count the number of occurrences of a special string (wildcards) in document office

2 Answers2