Is there a better VAL()?

[Bruin 1953]

As you know, Val() stops at commas, parentheses, etc, but ignores spaces between separate numbers!
CDBL(strTxt) offers help, but only if the string is fully numeric

I often write code to process copied text, and want to extract The number in a line like this
Profit/Loss: ($12,000.95) -- thru July

Is there a function for this, or do I have to write one myself?
Appreciate any help

[WoF]

I think you'd have to make use of the string functions to locate and extract numeric values from text.
If you are sure to have the $ leading a number you can locate it with InStr().
If the $ is not to be expected always, you'd have to walk through the string character by character until the first numeric digit.
Then you walk throiugh the following characters until the next non-numeric (accepting "," and ".").
Then you'd use Mid$ to extract the substring and then, if you want to use the CDbl() or Val(), you'd have to use Replace() to remove the comma.