HI guys im new to vb.net and im trying to do the following,
 i have a string in the format "30/07/1979", what i wana do is extract the last 4 characters, therefore in this case "1979" and place it in a variable X. I did this in java about 5 months ago and im kicking myself now cause i forgot how i did it. Does anyone have any ideas, many thanks in advance.

Hi,

Dim x As String
        x = (Strings.Right(YourString as String, 4))

Hope this helps

Amit Jhawar
Developer

Another way to do this would also include a validation check (to make sure the original string was a date)

        Dim YourString As String = "30/07/1979"
        Dim s As String
        Try
            ' get the year from the date
            s = CDate(YourString).Year.ToString
        Catch ex As Exception
            ' assume not valid date format
            MsgBox("Not valid Date format!")
        End Try

        ' display year
        MsgBox(s)

You are actually turning your original string into a Date first, then obtaining the Year, then turing that Year into a string. But it'll allow you to handle incorrect data formats!

By the way, I live in the UK, and I hate the problems I encounter because of American dates being mm/dd/yy?!? It doesn't make any sence to me!?!? Why not smallest unit first?? dd/mm/yy!?? Or at least in unit order.. i.e. hh:mm:ss (getting smaller)!! I guess I'll never know? ;)

Funny, I've always seen it from the others side (helps that I live in the states, I suppose).

The long format for writing a date is:
 month dd, yyyy (ie September 7th, 2003). At least that was how I was taught to write dates in grade school.

So, it follow that the shortened version of that would be:
 mm/dd/yy or 9/7/2003.

Not sure how valid that is, but it's a possible explanation.

Steve

PS Oddly, when I was in the military dates were usually written:
  07SEP03 or less formally 7 Sept 2003. That was fairly standard.

Why is an elevator called a "lift", an apartment a "flat" and a flashlight a "torch?" :D