[RESOLVED] How to read some specific columns from a text file ?

[Daniel Duta]

Hello guys,

I have just posted both the entire subroutine involved in the extraction and the first 100 rows of the text file. Please keep in mind that this file has 5 columns and almost 4230000 rows (112Mb) ... The size is a very important detail as long as we should avoid some aproaches which take time.
As you can see, I have kept an usual timer to make different trials worked around comparable. In my PC the below process took almost 12 seconds and I would consider this time as a reference.

  'Load using the Input # statement (Fastest Method)
Private Sub btnInput_Click()
    Dim fnum As Integer, i As Long
    Dim myArray() As String, bigArray() As String
    Dim start_time As Single, stop_time As Single
    Dim pathFile As String, bigJoin As String

    pathFile = App.Path & "\hugeFile.txt"
    Screen.MousePointer = vbHourglass
    DoEvents
    'ReDim's should be done in run time but this takes time....
    ReDim myArray(1 To 5, 6000000)
    ReDim bigArray(6000000)

    fnum = FreeFile
    start_time = Timer
    Open pathFile For Input As #fnum
        i = 0
    Do While Not EOF(fnum) 'Check for end of file
        Input #fnum, myArray(1, i), myArray(2, i), myArray(3, i), myArray(4, i), myArray(5, i)
        i = i + 1
    Loop
    Close #fnum
   
    ReDim Preserve myArray(1 To 5, i)
    ReDim bigArray(1 To UBound(myArray, 2))
    'We keep only the first and the fourth column
    For i = 1 To UBound(myArray, 2)
    bigArray(i) = myArray(1, i) & " " & myArray(4, i) & " "
    Next i
   
    bigJoin = Join(bigArray)
    
    stop_time = Timer
    Label1.Caption = Format$(stop_time - start_time, "0.00") & " sec."
    Screen.MousePointer = vbDefault
End Sub

Again, is something redundant in my aproach (in terms of time or coding) ? Maybe I could avoid, in a way, to load those three unuseful columns in myArray...Is there any other feasible aproach to work with a huge database like this? I have some doubts that using an ADO I could improve my process but I will try tommorow. At least if we take into account that my goal is to find some substrings in that huge string...
Thank you all for your support.