fill directory structure into treeview from local or ftp

[westconn1]

this developed from a thread in vb6,
http://www.vbforums.com/showthread.php?t=649217
and i was pleased enough with the results i decided to move it to code bank

any recursive directory search is slow, even on the local machine, as it has to test every file to see if it is a folder

i am sure there would be better ways to do it, you only have to look at the way firefox ftp addin does it

to improve speed, it should be possible to only populate the root, then populate each of the nodes as they are opened, here is modified code, also solves unique key issue

for those who did not see the original thread
both sh as object and pathsep as string, need to be declared globally for the code to work correctly, feel free to change this if you do not like using global variables

Private Sub filltree()
      Dim nod As Object, n As Object, initdir As Variant
      If Not sh Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
      pathsep = "\"  'declare globally
      initdir = "ftp://username:[email protected]"
      'initdir = "c:\"
      If InStr(initdir, "/") > 0 Then pathsep = "/"
      Set sh = CreateObject("shell.application")
      Set n = sh.namespace(initdir)
      If Not Right(initdir, 1) = pathsep Then initdir = initdir & pathsep
      Set nod = tv.Nodes.Add(, , initdir, n.self.Name)
      listdirs n, nod
      nod.Expanded = True
      End Sub
 
      Sub listdirs(f As Object, nod As Object)
      Dim nod2 As Object, fitem As Object, i As Integer
      If f Is Nothing Then Exit Sub
      For Each fitem In f.items
          If fitem.isfolder Then
              Set nod2 = tv.Nodes.Add(nod, tvwChild, nod.Key & fitem.Name & pathsep, fitem.Name)
      '        listdirs sh.namespace(fitem), nod2
          End If
          DoEvents
      Next
      End Sub
       
      Private Sub tv_NodeClick(ByVal Node As MSComctlLib.Node)
      If Node.Children > 0 Then Node.Expanded = True: Exit Sub
      listdirs sh.namespace(Node.Key), Node
      Node.Expanded = True
      End Sub

the advantage here to using a shell object is you can use for either local of FTP folders and can start the tree from any level as supplied in initdir

as you might note i did this using late binding, you can add a reference to shell controls and automation, then change your variables to appropriate types, no other APIs or references are required, except treeview (tv) change name to suit

change ftp host, username and password as required

i tested on local harddrive runs seemlessly, pretty bloody good on ftp, even with very slow connection
i did some editing after pasting, so hope no errors

i am certain that similar code can be used with the ftp APIs to produce identical results for ftp, if desired