ini size problems

[slaphead109]

Im using the ini API's in my project.

Call GetPrivateProfileSection(name, szBuf, 255, App.Path & "\Profile.ini")

Each section has 8 parts, holding 4 characters of information, which is an ID number for a database.
[Science Block]
0200
0210
0200 etc

As I havent found a way to delete sections from the ini, I mark them as void when the user wishes to delete them:-
[Science Block]
VOID
0200
0210 etc
so they aren't added to the list box for the user to select.

The problem is there end up a lot of info in the ini file, most not needed.
Some sections aren't being read, as the VOID sections are still read into the buffer.
How big can I safely make the buffer, or is there a better way of going about this?

Thanks.

[Keithuk]

Well what you can do to remove all these VOID's is to open the inifile and read each line of the file. Use the Instr function to check if VOID is present if not then add this line to a ListBox. After you have read the file you can save it by writing the contents of the ListBox back to the inifile. So everything in the ListBox shouldn't contain VOID.

[randem]

Try

Declare Function WritePrivateProfileSection Lib "kernel32" Alias "WritePrivateProfileSectionA" (ByVal lpAppName As String, ByVal lpString As String, ByVal lpFileName As String) As Long

Use "" for the section string and it should delete the whole section.

[Keithuk]

Yes that will delete the value but it will still leave the Key behind.

[slaphead109]

Hi Guys, sorry so long in answering but I have been on holiday.

In the end I had to dump the ini files API.

Keithuk is right, couldn't delete all I wanted using API's.

I used .txt files, just copied all info except the "deleted" section to a new .txt file, deleted the old file and renamed the new .txt

Works great, I'm just a little frustrated I couldn't use an API to delete the key and the key contents.

Thanks for your help though