how to store specific cells into an array? vba-excel - arrays

Question

I have this:
column A
row1: str1;str2;str3
row2: str4;str5;str6
row3: str7;str8;str9
....................
rown: strn;strn;strn
The code below finds ";" character into the column A:
Range("A:A").Find(What:=";", After:=ActiveCell, LookIn:=xlFormulas, LookAt:= _
xlPart, SearchOrder:=xlByRows, SearchDirection:=xlNext, MatchCase:=False _
, SearchFormat:=False).Activate
I want to put all rows (from column A, containing semicolon character) into an array. I tried to use SET, like this:
dim r as Variant
Set r = Range("A:A").Find(What:=rngsearch, After:=ActiveCell, LookIn:=xlFormulas, LookAt:=_
xlPart, SearchOrder:=xlByRows, SearchDirection:=xlNext,MatchCase:=False _
, SearchFormat:=False).Activate
...but doesn't work. It's run-time error '13', type mismatch
I need this array (containing all the cells with semicolon) because I want to extract the strings (from str1 to strn) and separate them in different rows.
Can anyone help me? Maybe someone has another idea how I can do this?

Answer 1

There are probably more efficient ways to do this, I would personally prefer to avoid referring to an entire column, but this should hopefully do what you are expecting:
Sub test()
Dim ws As Worksheet
Dim rng As Range
Dim cel As Range
Dim strTmp As String
Dim arrFinal As Variant
Set ws = Sheets("Sheet1")
Set rng = ws.Range("A:A")
' Loop through all cells in column A
For Each cel In rng.Cells
' Is there a semicolon character in the cell?
If InStr(1, cel.Value, ";") > 0 Then
' Add the cell value to strTmp and add a _
semicolon at the end to separate this _
row from the next row
strTmp = strTmp & cel.Value & ";"
End If
Next cel
' Split strTmp into an array
arrFinal = Split(strTmp, ";")
End Sub
The end result Is an array called arrFinal of all strings between the semicolon characters

Answer 2

I was referring to something like this:
Sub GetSemicolonData()
Dim rngCell As Excel.Range
Dim asValues() As String
Dim lngCount As Long
Dim x As Long
With Range("A1").CurrentRegion.Columns(1)
.AutoFilter field:=1, Criteria1:="*;*"
lngCount = .SpecialCells(xlCellTypeVisible).Count
If lngCount > 1 Then
x = 1
' exclude header row
ReDim asValues(1 To lngCount - 1)
For Each rngCell In .SpecialCells(xlCellTypeVisible)
If rngCell.Row > 1 Then
' load value into array
asValues(x) = rngCell.Value
x = x + 1
End If
Next rngCell
End If
End With
End Sub
You could also use a variation of Dave's approach that loads all the data into an array and processes that - it should be faster than cell by cell reads.