[RESOLVED] Write To File With Append Creates New Line when it shouldn't

I have tried searching the forums for an answer but i could not find what i was looking for,

I'm basically trying to Write to a text file using the Append instead of Output function so that it puts all of the text on the same line.

However after 81 characters in the text document a new line is created and the remaining string that should have been on the first line starts on a new line.

Things i have tried:

• Taking off word wrap on notepad
• Putting a ";" at the end of each line

everything works fine, except depending on the length of account(i).ip and account(i).date the string will start a new line regardless of the code.

Is this a fault of notepad? Or is it something to do with my code? If there is no solution i may have to try using a SQL server or something which is too overboard for my small project. Thanks heaps for anyone that has any ideas.


Here is my code:

Code:

---

Public Sub write_data()
    Open App.Path & "\accounts.dat" For Append As #1
        For i = 0 To totalaccounts - 1
            Print #1, account(i).firstname & "¿";
            Print #1, account(i).surname & "¿";
            Print #1, account(i).username & "¿";
            Print #1, account(i).password & "¿";
            Print #1, account(i).email & "¿";
            Print #1, account(i).compUser & "¿";
            Print #1, account(i).compName & "¿";
            Print #1, account(i).ip & "¿";
            Print #1, account(i).date; vbCrLf
        Next i
    Close 1
End Sub

---

This is also the text that gets written to my output file (accounts.dat) as it appears in notepad:

Code:

---

john¿doe¿johnny¿password¿[email protected]¿John¿JOHN-PC¿10.0.0.1
¿8/03/2011

---

as you can see the date is on a new line, but by using "Append" instead of "Output" and the ";" should keep it on the same line.. hmm :(

?? Using WordWrap to OFF in NotePad will show all entries in a single line to me ???

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by opus

?? Using WordWrap to OFF in NotePad will show all entries in a single line to me ???

---

Thanks for your reply, i did already try that though, and even with word wrap off, it seems to be when the string gets written to file that it seperates the string onto the second line

Please post an example of your output-file ("accounts.dat").

i attached accounts.dat , it is actually a .txt document as i could not upload .dat file.

the way the information appears in the file is exactly how the program writes it to file but i have changed the name / email / ip for privacy reasons. thanks

Do you get different results doing something like this?

Code:

---

Public Sub write_data()
Dim strData(8) As String

    Open App.Path & "\accounts.dat" For Append As #1
        For i = 0 To totalaccounts - 1
            strData(0) = account(i).firstname
            strData(1) = account(i).surname
            strData(2) = account(i).username
            strData(3) = account(i).password
            strData(4) = account(i).email
            strData(5) = account(i).compUser
            strData(6) = account(i).compName
            strData(7) = account(i).ip
            strData(8) = account(i).Date
           
            Print #1, Join(strData, "¿") & vbCrLf
        Next i
    Close 1
End Sub

---

I see your problem, however??????????

The linebreak comes directly after the IP-address and BEFORE the "¿" which is set in the same code line as the IP. for this reason I think it is caused by the IP-address. How is it defined?, does this variable hold more then what we expect.
Do a test with several IP's for one (expected) line, do they also show this linebreak behaviour?

@MarkT
Thanks for your reply, i tried that code and no fix.


@opus
Yes you're right. It does have something to do with the IP Address! I tried switching the array around so account(i).ip gets written first and for some reason it is creating a new line.

it is a variable: Dim strName As String and only contains the ip data, e.g. 10.0.0.1. Tested by displaying it in a message box.


Here is what it came out like after i rearranged the array:

Code:

---

10.0.0.1
¿John¿Doe¿Johnny¿password¿[email protected]¿John¿JOHN-PC¿8/03/2011

---

How about this?

Code:

---

Public Sub write_data()
Dim strData(8) As String

    Open App.Path & "\accounts.dat" For Append As #1
        For i = 0 To totalaccounts - 1
            strData(0) = account(i).firstname
            strData(1) = account(i).surname
            strData(2) = account(i).username
            strData(3) = account(i).password
            strData(4) = account(i).email
            strData(5) = account(i).compUser
            strData(6) = account(i).compName
            strData(7) = account(i).ip
            strData(7) = Replace(strData(7), vbCr, "")
            strData(7) = Replace(strData(7), vbLf, "")
            strData(8) = account(i).Date
           
            Print #1, Join(strData, "¿") & vbCrLf
        Next i
    Close 1
End Sub

---

@MarkT
It works! Thanks so much. After reading your code i would never have been able to come up with that... Does that just work by deleting any kind of vbCrLf in the variable? I shall keep that in mind if something similar happens in the future... Thanks so much :)


@opus
Thanks for your time and your hard work! :) you helped me a lot!

Yes, that is what it does. If you are sure that you have both a carriage return and a line feed at the end of the ip address you could do the replace on one line. Since I wasn’t sure of that I did the replace individually.

It's so strange.. is there a way of making sure there is no vbCrLf's in it? I don't understand why there would be one in the ip when it is just numbers and dots.

I thought after saving the string to file correctly as you showed me before, it would read it from the file without any vbCrLf's, but when i try read from the file as Input, there is a new hidden vbCrLf in the middle of the ip, so it thinks the first line of string is just 10.0 instead of 10.0.0.1.

Even though we added it in the text file previously without the carriage return, upon reading it, it seems to gain another one lol. :S so confusing.

What code are you using to read the file?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MarkT

What code are you using to read the file?

---

Keep in mind i swapped the ip position to the start of the string, i thought it might have made things easier?

Edit: I also tried to be smart.. i tried using that replace trick with the vbCr and vbLf but i couldn't work my way around it as the only string it is pulling up as the first line of Input is 10.0

Code:

---

Public Sub read_data()

If Dir(App.Path & "\accounts.dat") <> "" Then 'if the file exists
    totalaccounts = 0
    Open App.Path & "\accounts.dat" For Input As #1
        Do While Not EOF(1)
            Input #1, TempString
            TempArray = Split(TempString, "&#191;")
            account(totalaccounts).ip = TempArray(0)
            account(totalaccounts).firstname = TempArray(1)
            account(totalaccounts).surname = TempArray(2)
            account(totalaccounts).username = TempArray(3)
            account(totalaccounts).password = TempArray(4)
            account(totalaccounts).email = TempArray(5)
            account(totalaccounts).compUser = TempArray(6)
            account(totalaccounts).compName = TempArray(7)
            account(totalaccounts).date = TempArray(8)
            totalaccounts = totalaccounts + 1
        Loop
    Close 1
Else
    Open App.Path & "\accounts.dat" For Output As #1 'this will create the file
    Close 1
End If
   
End Sub

---

You are saying if you do this it returns the IP address on 2 lines

Code:

---

Public Sub read_data()

If Dir(App.Path & "\accounts.dat") <> "" Then 'if the file exists
    totalaccounts = 0
    Open App.Path & "\accounts.dat" For Input As #1
        Do While Not EOF(1)
            Input #1, TempString
            TempArray = Split(TempString, "&#191;")
            account(totalaccounts).ip = TempArray(0)
            MsgBox TempArray(0)
            account(totalaccounts).firstname = TempArray(1)
            account(totalaccounts).surname = TempArray(2)
            account(totalaccounts).username = TempArray(3)
            account(totalaccounts).password = TempArray(4)
            account(totalaccounts).email = TempArray(5)
            account(totalaccounts).compUser = TempArray(6)
            account(totalaccounts).compName = TempArray(7)
            account(totalaccounts).Date = TempArray(8)
            totalaccounts = totalaccounts + 1
        Loop
    Close 1
Else
    Open App.Path & "\accounts.dat" For Output As #1 'this will create the file
    Close 1
End If
   
End Sub

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MarkT

You are saying if you do this it returns the IP address on 2 lines

---

If i put in a MsgBox to see what TempString is it displays 10.0 - Well actually it displays 123.211 - (just didn't want to display the full ip) not that it matters.

It doesn't get to the MsgBox in your code because the Split function doesn't actually work as there is no splitter e.g. "¿".

Comes up with an error "Subscript out of range" which makes sense because technically the array doesn't exist.

Just to make sure, did you have a look at the actual written file using notepad?

Yes i'll post what it looks like now with MarkT's fix, it writes correctly to file on one line, but when the program is reading the data from file there is now more vbCrLf's hidden somewhere?

I will link what accounts.dat looks like now when written:

Code:

---

10.0.0.1¿John¿Doe¿Johnny¿password¿[email protected]¿John¿JOHN-PC¿8/03/2011

---

But when reading from the same file, the first line it reads is 10.0 and that's all...

How did you declare your UDT holding the account data, especially the .IP part?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by opus

How did you declare your UDT holding the account data, especially the .IP part?

---

This is what i declared everything as:

Code:

---

Public account(1000) As account

Public Type account
    firstname As String
    surname As String
    username As String
    password As String
    email As String
    compName As String
    compUser As String
    ip As String
    date As Date
End Type

---

i give up :( i just took the whole ip part out lol