I am currently reprogramming code made long ago by a less than skilled programmer. Granted the code works, and has for a number of years but it is not very efficient.
The code in question is in VB6 with SQL calls and it checks a particular directory on the drive (in this example we will use c:\files) and if a file exists, it moves the file to the processing directory loads the parameters for that particular file and processes them accordingly.
Currently the code uses the DIR function in VB6 to identify a file in the appropriate directory. The only problem is that if a number of files exist in the directory it is a crap shoot as to if it will grab the 5kb file and process it in 3 seconds or if it will grab the 500,000kb file and not process any others for the next 10 minutes.
I search many message boards to find some way to have it pick the smallest file and found I could build a complicated array to perform something similar to a sort but I decided to try alternate ideas instead to hopefully reduce processing time involved. Using ancient DOS knowledge I created something that should work, but for some reason is not (hence posting here).
I made a batch file that we will call c:\test.bat which contained the following lines:
delete c:\test.txt
dir /OS /B c:\files\*.txt>c:\test.txt
This deletes a prior existence of test.txt the pipes a directory without headers sorted by file size smallest to largest into c:\test.txt.
I then inserted the following code into the pre-existing code at the beginning:
Shell "c:\test.bat", vbHide
filepath = "c:\test.txt"
Open filepath For Input As #1
Input #1, filegrabber
Close #1
When I step through the code I can see that this works correctly, except now later on in the code I get a
Runtime error 91 Object variable or with block variable not set
in regard to assigning a FileSystemObject. Am I correct in guessing that FSO and Shell do not work well together? Also if you can suggest a better alternative to getting the smallest file from a existing directory suggestions are appreciated.
No need for sorting.
Just use Dir() to cruise through the directory. Before the loop set a Smallest Long variable to &H7FFFFFFF then inside the loop test each returned file name using the FileLen() function.
If FileLen() returns a value less than Smallest assign that size to Smallest and assign that file name to SmallestFile a String variable.
Upon loop exit if Smallest = &H7FFFFFFF there were no files, otherwise SmallestFile has your file name.
Seems incredibly simple, what am I missing?
Another approach is to use the FileSystemObject's Files collection. Just iterate the files collection for a given folder and evaluate each File object's Size property. So long as you don't have a million files in a folder or something, performance should be fine.
Related
I want get the oldest creation file in a directory but want to exclude the file ‘Startup’(Which is currently the oldest file). So I would like to skip that file and get the next oldest creation file in the directory which would be ‘TEST’.
This code only gets the Startup.
Dim oldestFile = folderlist.OrderBy(Function(fi) fi.CreationTime).First
1:
You use the Where function to filter.
Dim folder As New DirectoryInfo(folderPath)
Dim oldestFile = folder.EnumerateFiles().
Where(Function(fi) fi.Name <> "Startup.txt").
OrderBy(Function(fi) fi.CreationTime).
First()
Note that it is preferable to use EnumerateFiles rather than GetFiles unless you really want access to the full array of files after the fact. If you only need that one file, EnumerateFiles is better because it doesn't get all the files first and then perform the other operations on that array. You may already know this but most people don't at first.
Note also that I'm assuming that those are text files based on the icons. Change the name in the filter if they are something else. As a developer, you really ought to switch off the File Explorer feature that hides file extensions. That's for people who don't understand computers.
I'm trying to automate a document handling process, and I need to check if there are any files inside a certain folder. The process itself removes the files from the folder once it finishes, so I need it to loop back and check if there are any files left.
So far I've been using a sample file like this:
File.Exists("C:\Users\gcaor\Desktop\OC\150.pdf")
150.pdf is the sample file it's searching for, but is there a way to search for any file at all? So that it returns true if there is a file in the folder and false if there isn't
You can use Directory.EnumerateFiles + Any:
Dim anyFileExist = Directory.EnumerateFiles(path).Any()
This is using standard .NET methods and also stops at the first file found.
I have to load a textfile into my software, which can be really big (at least 1.5 GB), because I need to read the last line of this file to enumerate some elements with the next part of the script. The needed time can be very long but, sometimes, it is not possible to read the file because of the following error:
System.OutOfMemoryException: 'Array dimensions exceeded supported range.'
Is there a way to solve this issue? Or maybe a different - and better - path that I can follow to do what I need?
EDIT I:
Here follows more details:
I'm generating the aforementioned textfile from a batch-script which is run from the software of mine by pressing a button
Since I need to read a number contained in the last row of the generated textfile, I'm loading the file into the software, the pressure of a button is needed and for the relative Sub I'm using the following command:
Dim path as string
path = "C:\textfile.txt"
RichTextBox1.LoadFile(path, RichTextBoxStreamType.PlainText)
If you only need the last line of the file...
Dim LastLine = File.ReadLines("file.txt").Last()
i started a project for a friend, that involved moving large quantities of files into specific folders. i was using automator as I'm handling the project on my mac, however automator does not have a feature to move section of files that are numbered numerically. for instance i will have files that are say "this file 100" and ill have 100 files like that. and then files that say "That file 50" and ill have 200 files like that. the project is splitting these files into there own folder but in section. so ill need "This file" 1-25 in one folder 26-80 in anther and so on. same is true for the "THAT FILES" but there isn't a pattern just the requirement my friend has asked for.
is there a easy way to write a script that could grab 1-25 or any sequel ordering with the same file name? because moving each file one at a time with automator has been taking to long.
thank you so much in advanced
I am not sure tu fully understand your naming convention, but overall , yes, with Applescript, you can move files into folders based on names, eventually adding sequence numbers.
Because I am not sure about your requirements, at least, here are some sample of syntax for main operations :
Get list of files with names containing xxx in folder myFolder :
Tell Application "Finder" to set myList to every file of myFolder whose name contains "xxx"
Then you have to do a repeat / end repeat loop :
Repeat with aFile in myList
-- do something here with aFile : example with name of aFile
end repeat
In that loop you can extract name, parse it, add a counter,...
To move file to new folder, you must use "move" instruction in a tell "Finder" bloc. Instruction "make" can also be used to create new destination folder based on name or root names of files. You must remember that Applescript commands will give error if same file name already exists in destination folder : Finder is able to add "copy" in the name, but you must do it yourself in Applescript.
Last advice if about the number of files to handle. If that number is not so high (less than few hundreds) Applescript is still OK for speed. If your number of files is much higher, then you must use either shell command or, better, a mix of AS and shell commands. The shell commands can be called from AS with a "do shell script". For instance, getting the list of 1000 files from a folder is time consuming with AS, but much quicker with 'ls' command ! Same for a copy. here is an example of copy using shell 'cp' :
do shell script "cp " & quoted form of (POSIX path of (aFile as string)) & " " & quoted form of (POSIX path of DestFolder) & (quoted form of newFileName)
Note : "Posix path" converts the AS file path (Users:myName:Documents:File.txt) into shell path (Users/myName/Documents/File.txt)
I hope it helps.
I'm pretty new to visual basic (and coding in general) so if I've made any really simple mistakes let me know.
Right now, I'm getting a pretty weird problem with my vb.net code.
The filestream is able to correctly open the file and read from it - but what's weird is that while the code is able to read a bunch of lines from the beginning of the file, when I manually open the file in notepad I'm not. Here's the code:
Dim fs, f, s 'filesystemobject, file, stream.
fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
f = fs.GetFile(CurrDataPath) ' This change made to ensure the correct file is opened
s = f.OpenAsTextStream(1, 0) ' 1 = ForReading, 0 = as ASCII (which i think is right?)
Dim param(14) As String
Dim line As String
line = s.ReadLine()
While i <= 14
i += 1
MessageBox.Show(line)
line = s.ReadLine()
End While
(I've read that arrays are a bad idea but they've been convenient and haven't caused me any problems so I've been using them anyways.)
What's weird is that when this code is run, it will (in the message boxes) show me the information I want to see - which isn't bad at all. The information that I want looks like this:
BEGINPARAM
parameter1, 0
parameter2, 7.5
ENDPARAM
EDIT:
After using Path.GetFullPath(DFile), I found that there were two files in different directories with the same name DFile. The file I had been opening in Notepad was saved in the directory where I expected it to be saved, while the file the code was reading was saved in the VB project's folder.
Once I changed the code to rely on CurrDataPath which includes the expected path, the code read from the file exactly what I did in notepad.
I do have word wrap on in notepad, so I know that's not the issue, however, I will look into getting notepad++.
The file named DFile is created in a c++ program that I'll be digging through to find out why one part of the file is written to a different folder than the rest.
Obviously I'm missing something important, and if anyone could help, that would be great.
*Note: This is a vb6 migration project so if anyone asks I can provide the old code.
Assuming the most recent version of VB.Net, the modern way to write that is like this:
For Each line As String In File.ReadLines(CurrDataPath).Take(14)
MessageBox.Show(line)
Next
I'm not 100% clear on what you're saying. There's nothing in this code that outputs to a file, so what you have to be saying is that when you open the file referenced by "DFile" on line 3 above, that file doesn't have the lines containing "parameter1, 0" and "parameter2, 7.5" in it?
Since we know that's not technically possible, do verify the answer to the question above and make sure you're really opening the same file in notepad as the script is opening. The second thing to do is to turn on Word Wrap in Notepad or download Notepad++ (a text editor I think everyone should have anyway) and make sure that the data's actually missing, and not just not showing on your screen because it's not using Windows style line endings.