how do i navigate from one file to another -VB6

jazzydonald · May 10th, 2007, 08:59 AM

hi there vb-gurus
am trying to develop a small program that manipulate files by copying the file name of one file and renaming another file using the file name copied. OK,I have managed to do that but what i wanted to do is to do some loop and let the program move from one file to another and select those files to rename becase i have a lot of files. So how do i move from one file to another and do a loop?(files are in a folder) Here is the code that i have written:

Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim Oldfile As String
Dim newFile As String
Dim FileName As String

   CommonDialog1.ShowOpen

    Oldfile = CommonDialog1.FileName

    'copy the filename
    FileName = Oldfile

    'delete this file as it is no loger needed
    Kill Oldfile

    CommonDialog2.ShowOpen

    'select the file that you want to rename
    newFile = CommonDialog2.FileName

    'rename the file
    Name newFile As FileName

End Sub

BrianWren · May 10th, 2007, 11:06 AM

Code:

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Dim OldFile As String ' These Dim statements are part of the block
Dim newFile As String ' bounded by Sub and End Sub. IMHO, they
Dim FileName As String ' should be indented with the rest of
' that block for clarity.
CommonDialog1.ShowOpen

OldFile = CommonDialog1.FileName ' Oldfile is a String, not an object.
' Its value will persist after file is
' deleted.
FileName = OldFile ' So this line is superfluous,
' and variable âFileNameâ is also.

Kill Oldfile ' Delete the file; no longer needed.

CommonDialog2.ShowOpen

newFile = CommonDialog2.FileName ' Select the file to rename.

Name newFile As FileName ' Rename the file

End Sub

So:

Private Sub Command1_Click()

Dim OldFile As String
Dim NewFile As String

With CommonDialog1
.ShowOpen
OldFile = .FileName ' Get FileName
End With

Kill OldFile ' Delete the file; itâs no longer needed.

With CommonDialog2
.ShowOpen ' Get name of file to rename.
NewFile = .FileName ' Select the file to rename.
End With

Name NewFile As OldFile ' Rename the file

End Sub

Now, if you want to use OldFile again and again, you can put the second half of the procedure in a loop that is exited once cancel is hit on the common dialog. I'm not sure the result of that (you'll need to investigate), but let's say that it is that .FileName is an empty string. Then you would use:

Code:

Private Sub Command1_Click()

    Dim OldFile As String
    Dim NewFile As String

    With CommonDialog1
        .ShowOpen
        OldFile = .FileName
    End With

    Kill OldFile

    With CommonDialog2
        .ShowOpen               ' Get the initial file to be renamed
        Do Until .Filename = "" ' Was one selected?
            NewFile = .FileName
            Name NewFile As OldFile
            .ShowOpen           ' Get the additional names, 1 by 1.
        Loop
    End With



End Sub

Or are you trying to do something else?

jazzydonald · May 11th, 2007, 02:02 AM

thanks brianWren for your reply. its almost exactly what i wanted to do, but i didnt want to use the common dialog to select the files manually, i wanted the program select the files automatically, do the necessary and move on to the next file( just as you would use the 'movenext' in the database). And in addition the files are sorted in an order that would work fine i what am thinking is possible.
Here is is the sample of how the files are arranged:

0001 'this is the file that i need to copy its filename , but the deleted one
0001(1) 'this is the actual file that i need to rename and keep
0002
0002(2)
0003
0003(1)

I'll be grateful for your reply.

gbianchi · May 11th, 2007, 07:31 AM

hi there...

sort a directory will be a tricky thing to do.. but you can do a loop using dir("*.*") the first time and dir() the rest of the time... it will give you all the files in a folder.

HTH

Gonzalo

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BrianWren · May 11th, 2007, 03:05 PM

To expand on what Gonzalo said...

Dir() and Dir$() return file names (the name only, no path info).

The first call should include a file specification (As in Gonzoâs "*.*"). All calls without an argument will return the next file that matches the specification.

Once there are no more that match, the next call returns an empty string, and all calls after that raise an error.

So substitute for

Code:

    With CommonDialog2
        .ShowOpen               ' Get the initial file to be renamed
        Do Until .Filename = "" ' Was one selected?
            NewFile = .FileName
            Name NewFile As OldFile
            .ShowOpen           ' Get the additional names, 1 by 1.
        Loop
    End With

the folowing

Code:

    Dim Pth As String
        Pth = "C:\WhatEver\"

    NewFile = Dir$(Pth & "WhateverThePattern.is")  ' Get the 1st file name.

    Do Until NewFile = ""                          ' If one was found,
        Name Pth & NewFile As OldFile              ' do the work

        NewFile = Dir$()                           ' Get remaining file names
    Loop

jazzydonald · May 14th, 2007, 03:44 AM

hi briawren,thanks for the reply. I could not understand this line of code

NewFile = Dir$(Pth & "WhateverThePattern.is")

what do i replace "WhateverThePattern.is" with?

thanks

BrianWren · May 14th, 2007, 02:01 PM

You would replace that with pattern that includes the files you want to rename. If you want to rename every file in the folder, it would be "*.*". If only Word documents, "*.DOC".

Of course, whatever you use will trigger an error on the 2nd file as this is currently written, because it would try to name 2 files in the same folder with an identical name (which, of course, is not permitted).