Remove Letters from a row - ms-access

Question

I have a GPS truck tracking DB i am working with and I want to remove all the Letters from a certain column. Or if it is easier extrapolate all the Numbers and put them in their own column. The Left, Right, Mid will not work because the numeric value for each number position changes line to line.Screen Shot of DB
I am not sure this is even possible in access or if I will have to pass the data through python to do what I am wanting.

Answer 1

try
InStr( startPosition, "abcdefg", "c" )
returns the character position of "c" in "abcdefg", 0 if no match.
Either use vba to programmatically process the records or use queries directly but not as efficient.
ex. (step by step to make it clearer)
SELECT IIf( InStr(1,[description],"odo:")>0, "found", "not found" )
AS Result FROM MyTable;
replace "found" with:
Mid( [description], InStr(1,[description],"odo:")+3 )
this will chop off everything on the left "On Duty, odo:", "Driving, odo:".
Since it is not posible to store into temporary variables in queries, just use up several InStr() to find "odo:" and possibly " Miles" then use them again to compute the length. For small number of records this will be fine, otherwise better use VBA for efficiency.

Answer 2

The following are two methods to return only digits - but you need to tell us which field(s) you want to parse.
Option Compare Database
Option Explicit
Function Test_This()
Dim strIN As String
strIN = "On Duty, odo: 245678.9,"
MsgBox "Loop Method:" & vbCrLf & "Input String: " & strIN & vbCrLf & "Output String: " & Method_Loop(strIN)
MsgBox "Parse Method:" & vbCrLf & "Input String: " & strIN & vbCrLf & "Output String: " & Method_Parse(strIN)
End Function
Function Method_Parse(InValue As String) As String
Dim i As Integer
Dim i2 As Integer
Dim iLen As Integer
Dim strOut As String
iLen = Len(InValue)
i2 = 0
strOut = ""
' Assume delimiter is colon + space
i = InStr(1, InValue, ": ")
If i = 0 Then
MsgBox "No starting delimiter (: ) for '" & InValue & "'", vbOKOnly, "No Start Delimiter"
Method_Parse = ""
Exit Function
End If
i2 = InStr(i, InValue, ",")
If i2 = 0 Then
MsgBox "No ending delimiter (,) for '" & InValue & "'", vbOKOnly, "No End Delimiter"
Method_Parse = ""
Exit Function
End If
strOut = Mid(InValue, i + 2, i2 - i - 2)
Method_Parse = strOut
End Function
Function Method_Loop(InValue As String) As String
Dim i As Integer
Dim i2 As Integer
Dim iLen As Integer
Dim strOut As String
iLen = Len(InValue)
i2 = 0
strOut = ""
For i = 1 To iLen
' If you can have a period that is not part of the number,
' and your number's can have decimal places, then modify the code
' to check if 'IsNumeric' for the prefeeding and following characters.
If (IsNumeric(Mid(InValue, i, 1))) Or (Mid(InValue, i, 1) = ".") Then
strOut = strOut & Mid(InValue, i, 1)
End If
Next i
Method_Loop = strOut
End Function

Answer 3

Looks like from that screenshot you can use:
X = InStr(0, Description, ":" ) 'Gets the position of the first semicolon
Y = InStr(X, Description, "," ) 'Gets the position of the following comma
Then you can use those two numbers in a Mid statement:
Z = Mid(Description, X + 1, Z - 1)
That should give you the odometer reading.
If you need other numbers, just continue on with that logic.