Is this the best way?

[steve65]

I am trying to save records that are in a binary file to a string array. The code below works but leads me to that there could be a better way to get number of strings in the file.

Is it safe just to put in 16 instead of Len(ObjectID(0)) or is this not good programming practice.

Public Sub File2Query(FilePath As String)

Dim TempDataFile As Integer
Dim ObjectID() As String * 16
Dim i As Integer

    ReDim ObjectID(1)
    ObjectID(0) = ""

    ReDim ObjectID(FileLen(FilePath) / Len(ObjectID(0)))
    
    TempDataFile = FreeFile
    Open FilePath For Binary As #TempDataFile

    Get #TempDataFile, , ObjectID

    Close #TempDataFile

End Function

Thanks

[Joacim Andersson]

Well since you have to call ReDim twice it's not really effesiant.
You could of course put in 16 instead of Len(ObjectID(0)) but then you have to make changes at different places in your code if you wanted to change the length of the strings.
I think the best thing is to declare a constant with the string length:

Public Sub File2Query(FilePath As String)
    Const STRINGLEN As Integer = 16
    Dim TempDataFile As Integer
    Dim ObjectID() As String * STRINGLEN
    Dim i As Integer

    ReDim ObjectID(FileLen(FilePath) / STRINGLEN)
    
    TempDataFile = FreeFile
    Open FilePath For Binary As #TempDataFile

    Get #TempDataFile, , ObjectID

    Close #TempDataFile
End Function

This constant could of course be declared in the General Declaration section as well if you use it in some other procedure.

[Joacim Andersson]

Oh... and an other thing, the LOF function is slightly faster than the FileLen function.
And also you could use \ operator instead of the / operator

Public Sub File2Query(FilePath As String)
    Const STRINGLEN As Integer = 16
    Dim TempDataFile As Integer
    Dim ObjectID() As String * STRINGLEN
    Dim i As Integer
    
    TempDataFile = FreeFile
    Open FilePath For Binary As #TempDataFile
      ReDim ObjectID(LOF(TempDataFile) \ STRINGLEN)
      Get #TempDataFile, , ObjectID
    Close #TempDataFile
End Function

[steve65]

Originally posted by Joacim Andersson
also you could use \ operator instead of the / operator

Huh? Whats the difference? I thought you always use / for division.

[Joacim Andersson]

Nope the \ operator always returns an Integer and is much faster. But then again you will only get an Integer as the result.

5 / 2 = 2.5
5 \ 2 = 2

And since you can't ReDim your array to something like 12.32 anyway you should go with the \ operator.

Best regards

[steve65]

Wow, you learn something new everyday.

Thanks!