NJBornSoonerBre

I used to be a COBOL & 3rd Generation language programmer in an HP MPE mainframe environment. Now I am an analyst for a Siemens Patient Accounting system and don't do much programming anymore. However, sometimes we pull ASCII files of information from the Siemens system and send them to other organizations.

What I need is to learn to do with Visual Basic is what I used to do with COBOL - that is: read in records from ASCII files(or ACCESS databases), manipulate the fields with if/then/else logic and basic math functions and output records to an ASCII file (or ACCESS db).

I have started reading Visual Basic for Dummies, but it mostly talks about creating dialog boxes and executing commands based on Windows events. What I need is to create .exe files that can be run from DOS commands in .BAT files that will input and output ASCII files.

Does anyone know of any resource I can use to learn this? Any suggestion would be appreciated. Thanks.

Mavric98

A vb program does not need to have a form in it. All you need is module with a sub main function in it. To have your program boot from the sub main funtion click on project then select <project> properties. A window will open and in the genereal tab there will be something that says startup object. Set that to be sub main.

This may sound confusing, but I don't know an esay way to explain it. In your book look into modules and the sub main function. With understanding of those things you can program in vb like it was just some structured language.

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"Hope is for people that don't stand a chance."

NJBornSoonerBre

Thanks for your response. I created a project and went into properties and found the tab you were talking about.

However, what I still don't know is:

* How do you "declare" or "open" an input file?

* How do you "declare" or "open" or create an output file?

* How do I "read" in a record from the input file?

* How do I "write" out a record to my output file?

I found chapter 33: Using Files from Database Programs You'd Rather Not Use in the book Visual Basic 6 for Dummies. It talks about retrieving, displaying and updating records from a database using a form. Not only do I not want to use a form, I'd rather use an ASCII file rather than a database. Again, if you know of any reference material I could use to find out how to do this, I would appreciate it. Thanks.

Mavric98

VB can do what you would like. VB opens and closes files with the key words OPEN and CLOSE. So you could look up OPEN in VB help, or do a search on google. I found this site after a quick search.http://www.garybeene.com/vb/tut-file.htm. Or you could go get another book on VB. The VB book written by diteil and deteil is pretty good. One more thing to keep in mind is that VB has other ways to access files besides the basic open and close commands; there is also the file system objects and that would be worth looking into.

I hope this helps.

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"Hope is for people that don't stand a chance."

zen_tom

OK, what is the format of your file? CSV, fixed width? In this example, I'm going to assume it's going to be fixed width with CR/CRLF characters at the end of each line.

Function read_a_file(strFileName as String) as Boolean
Dim File_Number as Integer
Dim a_line_of_data as String

File_Number = FreeFile() 'The FreeFile command searches for the next available file
'number. VB uses the file number as a handle for any further
'access to or from the file.

'This will open the file quoted in the function parameters
'for Input Access
Open strFileName For Input Access Read Shared As #File_Number

Do 'Start a loop

'Fetch a line of data from the open file and put the contents
'into the variable 'a_line_of_data'
Line Input #File_Number, a_line_of_data

<perform your ifs thens and buts here>

While Not EOF(File_Number) 'Continue the loop until you reach the end of
'the file.
Close File_number 'Close the file
read_a_file = True 'Set the return value of the function
End Function

The example above doesn't do much, just reads and processes the contents of a file. There are other methods of reading data:

Get, Read, Input

Which depend on the type of data you want to read.

The output of data to a file is pretty much the same

Open strFilename For Output Access Write Shared As #File_Number 'To open a file

Then either use

Print #filenumber, [outputlist]

or

Write #filenumber, [outputlist]

Depending on the format of your data (use print for fixed-length, or Write for CSV

This should start you off - Excell has all this code supported in its help-files, so look up the Open statement, Input, Print #, Read, Write, Get, Put etc (In case your firm are too tight to buy the MSDN stuff - it's exactly the same thing)

Does this help?