Importing data from files

VIEW MEMBER FEEDACK TO THIS TIP

When processing files from other sources, sometimes you have fixed length files and sometimes you have delimited files. The routines SetVariableValueByLen and SetVariableValue are two generic subroutines that facilitate the process nicely and unclutters your code. 

 
Code: Sub SetVariableValueByLen
( variablename As String, searchstring 
As String, strlen As Integer)
 
 variablename = Left(searchstring, strlen)
 searchstring = Right(searchstring, 
Len(searchstring) - strlen)
 
End Sub

Sub SetVariableValue( variablename As 
String, searchstring As String, searchchar As String)
 
 i = 0
 charat = 0
 For i = 1 To Len(searchstring)
  bchar = Mid(searchstring, i, 1)
  If bchar = searchchar Then
   charat = i
   'set i to the len of search so it 
will quit looping unnecessarily
   i = Len(searchstring)
  End If
 Next
 
 If ( charat = 0 ) Then
  'no searchchar found
  variablename =  Fulltrim(searchstring)
 Else
  If ( charact = 1) Then
   variablename = ""
   searchstring = Right(searchstring, 
Len(searchstring) - charat)
  Else   
   variablename = Left(searchstring, charat -1)
   searchstring = Right(searchstring, 
Len(searchstring) - charat)
  End If
 End If
End Sub


SAMPLE CALLING ROUTINE
fname = ws.OpenFileDialog(False, 
"Select file to be imported",, pathname) 
If Not(Isempty(fname)) Then
   Set stream = session.CreateStream
   pathname = Cstr(fname(0)) 
   If Not stream.Open(pathname, "ASCII") Then
      Messagebox pathname,, "Open failed"
      Exit Sub
   End If
   If stream.Bytes = 0 Then
      Messagebox pathname,, "File has no content"
      Exit Sub
   End If
  
   cnt = 0
   Do
      cnt = cnt + 1
      buffer$ = stream.ReadText
(STMREAD_LINE, EOL_CRLF)
      REM Discard lines with only LF + CR
      While buffer$ = Chr(13) & Chr(10) _
      And (Not stream.IsEOS)
         buffer$ = stream.ReadText(STMREAD_LINE)
 Wend
REM Process each line
   datavalue = buffer$
Call SetVariableValueByLen( checkstatus, 
datavalue, 1) Call SetVariableValueByLen
( bankdiv, datavalue, 
3) Call SetVariableValueByLen( account, 
datavalue, 10) Call SetVariableValueByLen
( checknum, datavalue, 
10) Call SetVariableValueByLen( yy, datavalue, 
2) Call SetVariableValueByLen( mm, datavalue, 
2) Call SetVariableValueByLen( dd, datavalue, 
2) Call SetVariableValueByLen( amountstr, datavalue, 
10) amount = Ccur( amountstr) \ 100 
Call SetVariableValueByLen( temp, datavalue, 
1) Call SetVariableValueByLen( unitcode, datavalue, 
3) Call SetVariableValueByLen( vendorid, datavalue, 
16) Call CreateCheckDoc() Loop 
Until stream.IsEOS Call stream.Close

MEMBER FEEDBACK TO THIS TIP

for delimited files I prefer something like this. I feel it's lot more readable: 

Dim RecordEntry As Variant 
Line Input #Fh%, EntireLine 
                
'Explode the values from that 
record to return individual field values 
RecordEntry = 
Evaluate (|@Explode("| & EntireLine & |" ; ";")|) 

Call doc.ReplaceItemValue("Field1", RecordEntry(0)) 
Call doc.ReplaceItemValue("Field2", RecordEntry(1)) 
Call doc.ReplaceItemValue("Field3", RecordEntry(2)) 
...

—Thilo H.

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This was first published in January 2006

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