Using InStr in Access VBA to lookup a string value from another table - dictionary

Question

Very new to access VBA and would love some guidance on this.
I am searching through a string and looking for a particular substring in this field. This substring would have a value based on another table, ie
order = "Reference order QQ131415"
The problem is, there is no particular pattern for order numbers. Some are 7 digits, some are 10 and some have dashes in there.
There is a table i have access too that has these order numbers though, and I guess I am trying to use that table as a dictionary.
my very very basic Access VBA code is like this
' order= Instr(1, rst![order], qst![order_id],vbBinaryCompare)'
order is the string where i have the order id i am trying to extract
order_id is the actual id from a seperate table.
Is this something that Access VBA can handle?

Answer 1

So i think this will help you
You're not very clear in the sentence following on from "order=" with your code. Could you clear that up.
Instr(string1, String2, [ compare ])
string1 Required. String expression being searched.
string2 Required. String expression sought.
Instr returns a Variant (number in this case) specifying the position of the first occurrence of one string within another. So it should be:
Position= InStr(1, string1, string2, 1)
So you'd now know that the ordernumber starts at position x in Order. You'd then have to do a left(Order, Len(order) -x) to extract the string.
Youd do that in a nested loop because youll have to loop through your dictionary per record in Order.
E.g.
Dim rsOrder as DAO.recordset
Dim rsOrderId as Dao.recordset
dim orderTest as integer
dim stringcapture as string
Set rsOrder = Currentdb.OpenRecordset("[SELECT STRING]")
rsOrder.Movefirst
Do until rsOrder.EOF or rsOrder.BOF
Order = rsOrder![OrderFieldName]
Set rsOrderId = Currentdb.OpenRecordSet("[SELECT STRING]")
rsOrderID.Movefirst
Do Until rsOrderID.EOF or rsOrderID.BOF
OrderID = rsOrderID![OrderIDFieldName]
orderTest = Instr(1, Order, OrderID,1)
StringCapture = left(Order, Len(order) -OrderTest)
rsOrderID.movenext
Loop
rsOrder.movenext
Loop
rsOrder.close
rsOrderID.close
Something to that affect.