im working on my first big program. I will try to explain short how the important part of the program works, and then try to explain what my problem is.
My program is used by few people, they drive around the Europe and repair our machines. After the work, they start my program, and write a report. Until now the program was generating at the end 3 Files. (PDF file generated by printform, text file which contained the same information's again and the last file that was an Excel file, that one contained Data that was written inside the Datagridview.
These workers, used Email to send all 3 files separated. As you imagine, sometimes that can end bad, cause after work they are tired and sometimes they send the wrong files. So I made a upgrade, which gives the user a possibility to send the files directly from the Program, being sure everything is fine. In background I created a directory where 2 of 3 files always get saved. The problem is, while using printform, there opens a window where the user can select the path. And here start the troubles, some of the workers select different a different path, but then my program wont find the files again(its very important that are 3 files are together). I searched for something that would look like
dim printformpath as string = printform.getpath
is there something that works that way? I was searching but I didn't found anything helpful.
Thank you for understanding & help
Thanks, I added the path to the printFileName property and changed printform settings from Print to preview to print to file :)
Have a nice day
Related
I am relatively new to programming and want to create a program which can solve a problem that I frequently have.
So here's the background to my short story: I was on a website which hosted many files (We're talking about around 500-1000 small files). I was then like," Oh sweet! I want to have all these things in my hard drive so I know that I have access to them... but am probably not going to use them either way". I proceeded to download all 500-1000 files on that site, but encountered a problem when I looked at the properties of my destination file. Let's say that out of 500 on the site, my computer only had 499 files. Just my luck. I wanted to know what was that one pesky file that slipped right by me and download that file specifically. What I didn't want to do was to delete all the files and then try my luck once more in downloading all the files from the website. On the site, there was no indication of what all files I downloaded, so I was completely in the blue. I could go in Ctrl+C each item, then Ctrl+V into the file manager search bar, but that would be tedious to repeat that 500 times.
Now, what I want to do: I wanted to go ahead and take all of the file names from the website (The file name that I downloaded and the file name that was in my drive are the same), put them all in a simple .txt document or something (The website has multiple unwanted text alongside the text I need, such as:
. If this is not possible to extract the text from the site like this, then I am ok with manually entering the names via copy paste). Then I want the computer to take these values in the document and then search for it in a specific folder path (Note: the actual files are in subfolders within the root folder I want to choose, so the program has to be able to search within multiple folders of the root). Then I want the computer to know if the value in the document, is present as a file. If the file doesn't exist, then I want that value/those values in the document to be displayed as the output. I want this cycle to repeat until all the values have been gone through. The output should list the values that were not present.
Conclusion: You probably now get at what I am trying to do, if you don't, tell me what I need to elaborate on. I really don't care how this program is made (what language or software), I just want something that works... but myself don't know how to create.
Thanks for reading and any response is appreciated!
Dhanwanth P :)
Here's a solution in Python in case you would like to explore...
Similar to what you described, all files from the website are listed in an Excel file 'website_files.xlsx'
And all files are saved in a folder 'downloaded_wav'. The script will work regardless the files are saved in the root directory or sub-folders.
Then I run below Python script to look for the missing file:
import pandas as pd
import os
path_folder = 'C:\\Users\\Admin\\Downloads\\downloaded_wav'
downloaded_files = []
d,m = 0,0
for path_name, subfolders, files in os.walk(path_folder): #include all subfolders
for file in files:
d+=1
downloaded_files.append(file)
df = pd.read_excel('website_files.xlsx')
for file in df.values:
if file not in downloaded_files:
print('MISSING', file)
m+=1
print(len(df), 'files on website')
print(d, 'files downloaded')
print(m, 'missing file(s) found')
Output:
MISSING ['OLIVER_snare_disco_mixready_hybrid.wav']
3 files on website
2 files downloaded
1 missing file(s) found
No worries; I found a solution by myself using Excel (God, it's powerful!).
Basically, I copied and pasted my values from the website, then used a filter to show the values only with .wav. Then I used a Power Query from the folder to get me a list of all names of files in a folder. Finally, I went ahead and compared the two using a formula:
=IF(COUNTIF(B:B,D,"OK","MISSING")
If you need more elaboration, I'd be happy to help, just reply to this. There might be an easier way, but I personally liked the straight-forwardness of this. You only need Microsoft excel!
EDIT:
For me, I used these two videos which go over the power query and countif function:
How to Get the List of File Names in a Folder in Excel (without VBA): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSCPVBWOqwc
How to Compare Two Excel Sheets (and find the differences): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ou_wfzcKKk
In my case, I made my sheet look like this:
I have a single command line windows executable that has many options built into this exe file.
Eg:
(It can take screenshot)
ToolGo.exe printscreen c:\temp\filename.jpg yyyymmdd
(It can show up)
ToolGo.exe showIP machineA
I want to write another command line application, possibly in .net , where it can embed/build a wrapper around this ToolGo.exe file into my application without the user be able to use the ToolGo.exe, and also users can only access one function of this main exe file.
In the example I want this other tool to access only the print screen function in this new exe file.
The new application will have this:
Tool2go.exe printscreen c:\temp\filename.jpg yyyymmdd
But if someone types the following, it will not work:
Tool2go.exe showIP machineA
Or
ToolGo.exe showIP machineA
Any ideas how I can write this code to do this in a .net command line application?
This is a multi-part question, so I'll just give the main part of the issue as the answer with suggestions on handling the rest.
You can embed a .exe into your program by clicking on Properties and navigating the the Resources section, and adding that .exe to it.
After that, it's just a matter of extracting it locally so you can pass your commands to it, and handle it's responses. (I'm not really aware of any way to do so w/out first extracting the. exe; the .exe itself needs to run somehow after all).
To extract the embedded .exe, you do this:
' Extract the MyProgram resource (i.e. your .exe)
Dim b() As Byte = My.Resources.MyProgram
' Write it to the user's Temp folder
File.WriteAllBytes(Environment.ExpandEnvironmentVariables("%TEMP%\MyProgram.exe"), b)
By extracting it to the user's Temp folder, you can pass it your commands, and since it's 'out of sight' the user probably won't even know it's there to directly use it themselves, unless they're a bit more advanced and visit their Temp folder often. You can slightly help to avoid this, but extracting the .exe when your program starts, and then deleting it when it exits, so it only exists on the user's system while your program is running.
As far as what the user can and cannot type in order to pass to the program, you can simply handle the filtering with your program; since your program is the one passing the commands to the .exe, just don't pass any commands that you don't allowed, and pass the ones you do want allowed.
I am Python newbie and wrote a script about a year back to retrieve pdf files and merge them into a single file/book. The script works and does what I need it to do, but lately as I am no longer the only user there seems to be some files that I think are causing it to crash. My suspicion is that it may be newer pdf files that have higher resolution images or forms etc. that pyPDF2 may not be able to handle, but I don't know that for sure. One thing that would help to know is what file(s) is creating the issue to scan the files, instead of using the native pdf file, but I can't figure that out since the error occurs upon the writing of all files. Below is the snippet of my code that I use for merging them along with the error. Is pyPDF2 still being updated? Is there are better supported/commercial utility out there that can do this? Any suggestions and help would be greatly appreciated!
for f in Submittal_Files:
h_path, f_name = os.path.split(f)
outfile.append(open(f, 'rb'))
outfile.write(open(Final_Submittal_File_Name + ".pdf", 'wb'))
print("\nSUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED!")
print("PRESS ENTER TO END!")
program_holder = input()
break
Sorry about the long error log before. I won't be able to get the files until Monday 7/23 when I will have access to them. I will provide 2 examples.
LOG:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ymbe1tnak7uuvs7/PDF-Merge-Crash-log.txt?dl=0
File Set #1 - Large Submittal - I had to delete some files to protect the innocent. They are mostly cover pages for sections and I know those are not an issue as they are used all the time.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xavrpfxmo6dr7mb/Case%20%231%20-%20JUST%20PDFs.rar?dl=0
File Set #2 - Smaller Submittal - Same as above.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/2lxk8bts0w2qsx8/Case%20%232%20-%20JUST%20PDFS.rar?dl=0
I have a text file. Now I have changed its file type from .txt to .abc. My VB.NET program loads the text into textboxes from that file. After changing the file type, however, other apps like NotePad and Word are able to open and read my .abc file.
Is there any way that only my application will be able to open/read from the file and no other app would be able to do so? What I mean is, suppose I have a PhotoShop document .psd file, no other app, rather that photoshop itself, can open it. How do I make my file unreadable by other apps?
There is no way to prevent an app that you don't develop from opening any file. The extensions are just there for helping us humans, and maybe a bit for the computer to know the default app you select for an extension.
Like you said, a .txt file can be opened by many many apps. You can open a .txt file with Notepad, Firefox, VSCode, and many others.
Same way, a .psd file can be opened by many many apps. You can open that .psd file with Photoshop, but also Notepad, Firefox, and VSCode, and probably the same apps as above.
The difference is which apps can read and understand the file.
In order to make a file not understandable by other apps, you need to make it into a format that cannot recognize, because you planned it "in secret".
Like Visual Vincent said above, you could encrypt the file in a way, or you can have a binary file, that basically only your app knows know to understand.
Since you dont own the app you want the file to be understood by, then you either have to accept that it can be opened by any app that can open files, or you can try to encrypt the file outside the app, or like zipping it with a password, and then decrypting or unzipping when you want to use it.
Firstly, any file can be read unless it is still open by a particular process or service. Even PhotoShop files can be 'read' by NotePad - try it!
So, an attempt at my first answer...
You can try a couple of methods to prevent opening the file, for instance, applying a file lock. As an example, SQL Server .mdf files are locked by the SQL Server service. This happens because the files are maintained in an open state, however; your application would have to remain running to keep these files open. Technically, though, the files can still be copied.
Another way is to set the hidden attribute for the file. This hides the file from the less savvy users, but it will be displayed if the user show's hidden files.
And my second answer: You refer to the format of files by saying only PhotoShop can read or write its own files (not true, but I know what you're saying).
The format of the file must be decided by yourself. You must determine how you are going to store the data that you output from your application. It looks like you have been attempting to write your application data into a text file. Perhaps you should try writing to binary files instead. Binary files, while not encrypted, as suggested by Visual Vincent in the comments to your question, still provide a more tailored approach to storing your data.
Binary files write raw binary data instead of humanised text. For instance, if you write an integer to the file it will appear as a string of four bytes, not your usual 123456789 textual format.
So, you really need to clarify what data you want to write to the file, decide on a set structure to your file (as you also have to be able to read it back in to your application) and then be able to write the information.
Right now we have a program that opens all of the word files in a folder and adds some information to the footer. After switching from Windows XP and Word 2003 to Windows 7 and Word 2007 we have started getting the following error:
Run-time error '5096':
EOALPHABETICARABICARABICABJADARABICALPHABAHTTEXTCAPSCA
(c:\Users...\Content.MSO\8BE508C6.docx)
It occurs at random in any of the files (you can be 10 files in or 100). I thought that it might be a problem with the files being on a network drive so I modified the program to copy each file locally first, add the footer to that copy, and then copy it back out to the network. However, that didn't seem to work. I'm looking for any suggestions on how to fix the problem or possibly rewrite the solution. However, I need to keep the solution in VBA since this app is part of a bigger suite which in not ready for a .NET re-write.
As it turns out I was able to workaround this problem by copying the word files locally, running the main code on the local copies, then copying them back out to the network. It didn't seem to be working at first because the user's machine on which I tested it did not have the most recent version of the program.
Adding this note for those still looking for answers to this error...
I have a macro that creates several docs from one that is open based on sections in the main document.
I was getting the Run-time error '5096' and was an able to find any solutions that worked.
Upon further examination while debugging the code I discovered that while pulling data out of the main doc and building a file name that there was a carriage return after the file name and before the extension. After adding a replace statement to remove carriage returns I am able to process documents all day without an error.
I have found that the error is caused by the total number of characters in the file name is too long. This usually occurs when manipulating file names and the full path is set in the variable. I will manually chop pieces out of real long names to force it to work.
I suppose if I were smart, I'd move into the directory and just deal with the file names without the directory prepended to the name.