Add a hyphen before the last 3 characters of variable length string

[LukeSnyder]

Hi All. I'm looking for some VBScript help (or Python) to add a hyphen before the last 3 characters of variable length string. I can manage with fixed length strings, but not variable ones. 12345 = 12-345 and 123456 = 123-456.

Thanks in advance.

Luke

[VinceAngelo]

No matter the language, the task is the same:

1. Compute string length
2. Create new string composed of:
   1. substring(pos 1 to (len-3))
   2. hyphen
   3. substring(pos len-2 to len)

The syntax is different in each language, as well as the radix of the first character (0 or 1) and the exact invocation of the substring function.

- V

[DanPatterson_Retired · Accepted solution]

got to love slicing  (EDIT  oooops Sorry Vince ... was playing and didn't see you had posted already)

>>> a = '123456'
>>> out = a[:len(a)-3]+'-'+a[len(a)-3:]
>>> out
'123-456'
>>> a = '12345'
>>> out = a[:len(a)-3]+'-'+a[len(a)-3:]
>>> out
'12-345'
>>>

[VinceAngelo]

No worries.  I often work with larger strings, which are O(N) in the length function, so I usually capture length once, vice embeding it twice. Yes, an optimizer might pick that up, but I like to pitch softly at optimizers.

- V

[LukeSnyder]

Thanks guys!

[TimWitt2]

Don't forget to mark the post with the correct answer as correct

[TedKowal]

VBSCRIPT:

dim a as string 
a = "MyFavoriteString123" 
a = Left(a, Len(a) - 3) & "-" & Right(a, 3)

[LukeSnyder]

Thanks Ted. I'm still learning...and always will be of course. I like this approach.