Saving multiple files with same name, different number

[Wendy Jackson]

I have written a small special purpose text editor that I use to prepare draft copies of text documents in the law office where I work after school. It works great, but I need to add a feature to it, if possible.

A legal document may have a newly edited draft each day for several days. I am required to save these progressive drafts by the same name with a progressing number. i.e. Excell01, Excell02, Excell03, etc.

My question: Can someone please give me a sample code that I can include in my text editor that will allow me, when saving a file, to type only the file name (without the number) and have the program look up and add the next available number to the end of the name. It's often difficult and time consuming to find the next available number.

Please help if you can!

Thanks!

Wendy

[kovan]

run a loop that will add numbers to end of file
example

for counter = 1 to 10
   fileName = fileName & Format(Counter, "00")
next counter

you sould get
Excell01
Excell02
Excell03
Excell04
Excell05
Excell06
Excell07
Excell08
Excell09
Excell10

hope that helps

[Wendy Jackson]

Thanks, Kovan.

I think this is what I need. I'll give it a try and let you know how I did with it. It may be a few days before I get it to work, though!

Thanks again,

Wendy

[CoreyS]

Hi Wendy, you can try this as well if you want. I didn't get a chance to test this, but I am aiming at this to search a directory for a filename base and it will increment it using a 000 numbering scheme. Try it, change it... Play with it, just a guess that this will work.

Private Function GetName(ByVal sDir As String, ByVal sFileName As String) As String

    On Error GoTo NumErr

    Dim sProc As String
    Dim x As Integer
    
    sProc = Dir(sDir, vbDirectory)
    Do While sProc <> ""
        If InStr(1, sProc, Left(sFileName, InStr(1, sFileName, ".") - 1)) > 0 And _
           InStr(1, sProc, Mid(sFileName, InStr(1, sFileName, "."), Len(sFileName))) > 0 Then
            x = CInt(Mid(sProc, Len(Trim(sProc)) - 6, 3))
            x = x + 1
            GetName = Left(sFileName, InStr(1, sFileName, ".") - 1) & _
                      CStr(Format(x, "000")) & Mid(sFileName, InStr(1, sFileName, "."), Len(sFileName))
        End If
        sProc = Dir
    Loop
    If GetName = "" Then GetName = sFileName
    
NumErr:
    x = 0
    Resume Next
    
End Function


'Then Just call it using an example like the following:

Private Sub Command1_Click()

    MsgBox (GetName("c:\temp\", "test.txt"))

End Sub

[Edited by CoreyS on 08-30-2000 at 01:18 PM]

[Wendy Jackson]

Thanks Corey!

I'll check this out later tonight if I can get to it. Looks like great code. I'll let you know how it goes.

Wendy

[HeSaidJoe]

'this assumes the files in the folder are assigned
'with 3 numbers as last sequence of the naming convention
'example..file001,file002,file003 or whatever name
'but always a 3 digit number

'will work for files ranging from 001 to 999


Option Explicit

'this is used to sort and array by alpha

Sub iSort(iArray As Variant)
     
     Dim Loop1 As Long
     Dim Loop2 As Long
     Dim Temp As String
  
     For Loop1 = UBound(iArray) To LBound(iArray) Step -1
       For Loop2 = LBound(iArray) + 1 To Loop1

         If iArray(Loop2 - 1) > iArray(Loop2) Then
           Temp = iArray(Loop2 - 1)
           iArray(Loop2 - 1) = iArray(Loop2)
           iArray(Loop2) = Temp
         End If
       Next Loop2
     Next Loop1
   End Sub

Private Sub Command1_Click()

    Dim stFile As String
    Dim sDir As String
    Dim i As Integer
    Dim myArr()
    Dim myLen As Integer
'the folder I used for testing this was C:\abc
'you change it to your folder

    stFile = Dir$("c:\abc\*.*")
    
'loop through the folder and get the names of all files
    Do While stFile <> ""
       myLen = Len(stFile) 'used in left string function

'redim and preserve the array as it's inside a loop
       ReDim Preserve myArr(i)
       
'take the .ext from the filename
      myArr(i) = Left(stFile, myLen - 4)
      
'increment for the array index
      i = i + 1
      
'next file in directory
      stFile = Dir
      
    Loop
    
'we now have the filenames so we sort them to put
'the last number on the bottom
    Call iSort(myArr)
    
'now we need to get the last 3 digits from the filename
'we need this because the filename is a string and you
'cannot add to a string so we extract them and edit them
    
    Dim NewFile As String
'newfile = the last item after we sort
    NewFile = myArr(UBound(myArr))
'now we take the last 3 digits from it's name
    NewFile = Right(NewFile, 3)
'we change the string to an integer so we can add
    NewFile = CInt(NewFile)
'we add 1 to the number we extracted
    NewFile = NewFile + 1
'we fromat it to show 3 characters at all time
    NewFile = Format(NewFile, "000")
'we display the number you will need to use
    MsgBox "My new number is " & NewFile

End Sub

[Glacius Cool]

You can add text entries together as long as they're stored in variant variables.

dim NewFile as variant
NewFile=Format(Right$(NewFile, 3), "000") + 1

Use of variants isn't good practice but it makes this code smaller (not enough to notice and perhaps harder to decypher). I didn't test the above 2 lines but in theory it will work.

[Wendy Jackson]

WOW!

Thanks to all you guys! It's evident that each of you put a lot of work and thought into this. I really appreciate you all helping me out in this. I'll drop you each an email when I get it working. (Tonight I study, tomorrow I go to classes and then to work. Not much time for coding!)

Thanks again!

Wendy