quickest i/o routine to process hundreds of ascii files

[Iain17]

There are many ways indeed to acomplish what you want to do. A COM object written in C++, would indeed be a very good way to do it. All you then need to do is to refernce the dll from your VB project and code away.

Other than that, i would have said the Input function, and the Get function. I usually find that the Get function is quicker on smaller files, while the Input function is quicker on larger files.

Private Sub inputMethod(strFile As String)
    Dim strText As String
    
    Open strFile For Input As #1
    'get the whole file.
    strText = Input(LOF(1), #1)
    Close #1
    
End Sub

Private Sub getMethod(strFile As String)
    Dim bTemp As String
    Dim strText As String
    
    Open strFile For Binary As #1
    'redim the byte array to the size of the file
    ReDim bTemp(LOF(1) - 1) As Byte
    'get the file in binary
    Get #1, , bTemp
    Close #1
    'convert the byte array to a string
    strText = StrConv(bTemp, vbUnicode)
    
End Sub