[SOLVED]Find Nth occurrence of number data in string

[Arctic_Eddie]

I need to parse a line of text which has several groups of numerical data. I need the text from the Nth group so I can convert it to Real with the Val() function. I've started a function:
 
function TForm1.FindNthWord( aline :String; acol :integer ) :String;

where 'aline' is a complete line of text and 'acol' is the Nth group of text separated by spaces
returns the text in the Nth group

For example, here is a partial line of text:
   90.00     0.00    -999.99   12.44   12.44    0.00000   -90.00

I want to return the 4th group, 12.44. The number of spaces and size of the text clusters is not constant. I can think of a very messy way of doing this but I need something more elegant.

Can some one point me to a string function that will help? I've only found PosEx so far.

[Never]

just use a tstringlist with seperator the space
add your string
remove blanks if any and you r done

[theo]

Code: [Select]

var SL:TStringList;
begin
 SL:=TStringList.Create;
 SL.DelimitedText:='90.00     0.00    -999.99   12.44   12.44    0.00000   -90.00';
 ShowMessage(SL[4-1]);
 SL.Free;
end; 

[Arctic_Eddie]

Now that's elegant, simple, and it works fine for my data.

Thank you so much.