In the current article, I will present the way to calculate the number of chars in a string with VBA. The inspiration came from the entry exam forHackBulgaria Programming 101v3. The tasks were given some months ago, so I assume it is OK to publish my solutions for them.

The previous task is resolved with VBA here and there.

DashInsert

You have to implement a function with the following signature – dashInsert(num)

• The argument num is of type integer.
• The function should return a string

Insert dashes '-' between each two neighboring odd numbers in num.

Don’t count zero as an odd number.

You can use any language you know.

Examples:

Here the task took me a little more time. I have used two loops – one to determine the number of dashes to be inserted and one to insert them. Furthermore, a function IsOdd was created, checking whether a digit is odd. Pretty much, it works flawlessly:

And here comes the code:

Option Explicit
Option Compare Text

Public Function DashInsert(lInput As Double) As String
    
    Dim strArray()              As String
    Dim sResult()               As String
    
    Dim sInput                  As String
    
    Dim lCount                  As Long
    Dim lResultCount            As Long
    Dim lNumberOfDashes         As Long
    Dim lLoop                   As Long
    
    sInput = Trim(Str(lInput))
    lCount = Len(sInput)
    
    ReDim strArray(lCount - 1)
    lLoop = lCount
    
    For lLoop = 0 To lLoop - 1
    
        If lLoop + 1 >= lCount Then Exit For
        
        strArray(lLoop) = Mid(sInput, lLoop + 1, 1)
        strArray(lLoop + 1) = Mid(sInput, lLoop + 2, 1)
        
        If IsOdd(strArray(lLoop)) And IsOdd(strArray(lLoop + 1)) Then
            lNumberOfDashes = lNumberOfDashes + 1
        End If
        
    Next lLoop
    
    lResultCount = lCount - 1 + lNumberOfDashes
    ReDim sResult(lResultCount)
    lNumberOfDashes = 0
    
    For lLoop = 0 To lLoop
    
        strArray(lLoop) = Mid(sInput, lLoop + 1, 1)
        
        If lLoop = lCount - 1 Then
            sResult(lLoop + lNumberOfDashes) = strArray(lLoop)
            Exit For
        End If
        
        strArray(lLoop + 1) = Mid(sInput, lLoop + 2, 1)
        sResult(lLoop + lNumberOfDashes) = strArray(lLoop)

        If IsOdd(strArray(lLoop)) And IsOdd(strArray(lLoop + 1)) Then
            lNumberOfDashes = lNumberOfDashes + 1
            sResult(lLoop + lNumberOfDashes) = "-"
        End If
        
    Next lLoop
    
    DashInsert = Join(sResult, "")

End Function

Public Function IsOdd(lNumber As String) As Boolean
    
    IsOdd = CBool(CLng(lNumber) Mod 2)

End Function

Enjoy it!