How to find a numeric value in a string - vb.net

Question

I am attempting to create a method which analyzes a string of text to see if it contains a numeric value. For instance, given the following string:
What is 2 * 2?
I need to determine the following information:
The string contains a numeric value: True
What is the numeric value that it contains: 2 (anyone of them should make the function return true and I should put the position of each of the 2's in the string in a variable such as position 0 for the first 2)
Here is the code I have so far:
Public Function InQuestion(question As String) As Boolean
' Possible substring operations using the position of the number in the string?
End Function

Answer 1

Here's an example console application:
Module Module1
Sub Main()
Dim results As List(Of NumericValue) = GetNumericValues("What is 2 * 2?")
For Each i As NumericValue In results
Console.WriteLine("{0}: {1}", i.Position, i.Value)
Next
Console.ReadKey()
End Sub
Public Class NumericValue
Public Sub New(value As Decimal, position As Integer)
Me.Value = value
Me.Position = position
End Sub
Public Property Value As Decimal
Public Property Position As Integer
End Class
Public Function GetNumericValues(data As String) As List(Of NumericValue)
Dim values As New List(Of NumericValue)()
Dim wordDelimiters() As Char = New Char() {" "c, "*"c, "?"c}
Dim position As Integer = 0
For Each word As String In data.Split(wordDelimiters, StringSplitOptions.None)
Dim value As Decimal
If Decimal.TryParse(word, value) Then
values.Add(New NumericValue(value, position))
End If
position += word.Length + 1
Next
Return values
End Function
End Module
As you can see, it passes the string `"What is 2 * 2?" and it outputs the positions and values of each numeric value:
8: 2
12: 2