vb.net split function

there are several ways to to this :)

http://www.dotnetperls.com/split-vbnet

from
http://www.dotnetperls.com/split-vbnet

Split based on words
Often you need to extract the words from a String or sentence in VB.NET. The code here needs to handle punctuation and non-word characters differently than the String Split method. Here we use Regex.Split to parse the words.

Program that splits words [VB.NET]

Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions

Module Module1

    Sub Main()
      ' Declare iteration variable
      Dim s As String

      ' Loop through words in string
      Dim arr As String() = SplitWords("That is a cute cat, man!")

      ' Display each word. Note that punctuation is handled correctly.
      For Each s In arr
          Console.WriteLine(s)
      Next
      Console.ReadLine()
    End Sub

    ''' <summary>
    ''' Split the words in string on non-word characters.
    ''' This means commas and periods are handled correctly.
    ''' </summary>
    Private Function SplitWords(ByVal s As String) As String()
      '
      ' Call Regex.Split function from the imported namespace.
      ' Return the result array.
      '
      Return Regex.Split(s, "\W+")
    End Function

End Module

Output

That
is
a
cute
cat
man

While I agree that a regex-based split can be used here, the pattern you would actually want to use would be your string, not "\w+", based on the phrasing of your question. In plusone3055's example, change the line:

Return Regex.Split(s, "\W+")

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to:

Return Regex.Split(s, "<NEW RECORD>")

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These examples still seem to just be splitting based on a space or punctuation.  I have a text file that contains a bunch of records, each record starts off with the <NEW RECORD> tag. So I need to read in all the text after each new record tag into an array.  

...even with the change I proposed above?

I tried this:

Dim SplitData() As String
 SplitData = Regex.Split(TextIn, "<NEW RECORD>")

It didn't split it. It put the entire contents into SplitData(0)

This is what I get:
untitled.PNG

Here is a sample input if it helps
sampledoc.txt

P.S.

Remember that regex is case-sensitive by default. "<NEW RECORD>" is not the same as "<new record>". You can change this behavior if necessary.

What does (?i) do? It worked.

What does (?i) do? It worked.

Makes the pattern following it case-insensitive. You can alternatively do:

Dim result() As String = Regex.Split(MyString, "<NEW RECORD>", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase)

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but my preference is the more succinct version. Use the version that makes the most sense to you  = )