title: Splitting String in VBA using RegEx
body: <p>I'm new to VBA and would like to seek some help with regards to using RegEx and I hope somehow can enlighten me on what I'm doing wrong. I'm currently trying to split a date into its individual date, month and year, and possible delimiters include "," , "-" and "/".</p>
  
  <pre><code>Function formattedDate(inputDate As String) As String
  
      Dim dateString As String
      Dim dateStringArray() As String
      Dim day As Integer
      Dim month As String
      Dim year As Integer
      Dim assembledDate As String
      Dim monthNum As Integer
      Dim tempArray() As String
      Dim pattern As String()
      Dim RegEx As Object
  
      dateString = inputDate
      Set RegEx = CreateObject("VBScript.RegExp")
  
      pattern = "(/)|(,)|(-)"
      dateStringArray() = RegEx.Split(dateString, pattern)
  
      ' .... code continues
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This is what I am currently doing. However, there seems to be something wrong during the RegEx.Split function, as it seems to cause my codes to hang and not process further.</p>
  
  <p>To just confirm, I did something simple:</p>
  
  <pre><code>MsgBox("Hi")
  pattern = "(/)|(,)|(-)"
  dateStringArray() = RegEx.Split(dateString, pattern)
  MsgBox("Bye")
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>"Hi" msgbox pops out, but the "Bye" msgbox never gets popped out, and the codes further down don't seem to get excuted at all, which led to my suspicion that the RegEx.Split is causing it to be stuck.</p>
  
  <p>Can I check if I'm actually using RegEx.Split the right way? According to MSDN <a href="https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8yttk7sy%28v=vs.110%29.aspx" rel="noreferrer">here</a>, Split(String, String) returns an array of strings as well.</p>
  
  <p>Thank you!</p>
  
  <p><strong>Edit</strong>: I'm trying not to explore the CDate() function as I am trying not to depend on the locale settings of the user's computer.</p>