Mid$ Function

The Mid$ function returns a String containing a specified number of characters from a string. The dollar sign suffix ($) indicates that this function always returns a String type, never a Variant.

Syntax

Mid$(string, start[, length])

Parameters

• string - Required. String expression from which characters are returned.
• start - Required. Long. Character position in string at which the part to be taken begins (1-based).
• length - Optional. Long. Number of characters to return. If omitted or if there are fewer than length characters in the text (including the character at start), all characters from the start position to the end of the string are returned.

Return Value

Returns a String containing the specified portion of the input string.

Behavior

• If start is greater than the number of characters in string, Mid$ returns a zero-length string ("").
• If start is less than 1, a runtime error occurs.
• If length is negative, a runtime error occurs.
• The first character in the string is at position 1.

Difference from Mid

The Mid$ function always returns a String, while the Mid function (without the dollar sign) can return a Variant. In practice, they behave identically in most scenarios, but the dollar sign version may be slightly more efficient as it avoids the overhead of the Variant type.

Examples

' Extract 3 characters starting at position 2
Dim result As String
result = Mid$("Hello World", 2, 3)  ' Returns "ell"

' Extract from position 7 to the end
result = Mid$("Hello World", 7)  ' Returns "World"

' Start position beyond string length
result = Mid$("Hi", 10)  ' Returns ""