School Project - manipulating .txt files

[cleaco]

Any chance of some help with a school project?

For a project I’ve been set the task of creating an athletics results and reporting system (combining another of my interests) in VB using random access .txt files.

So far I’ve been able to write data to a file, read the data from a file, and select and read an individual record from a file using its record number. Really basic stuff I know.

What I want to be able to do is store all the names of the competitors, event, heat, place and time in a single txt file, then from this extract the relevant data and sort all of the competitors in order by time.

Here is what I already have:

Private Sub cmdSelect_Click()
 
'DISPLAY CONTENTS OF FILE
 
 RecordLen = Len(TResults)
 ChanNum = FreeFile
 
userin = InputBox$("Please enter a filename")
 
Filename = userin & ".txt"
 
Open Filename For Random As #1
 
Record = InputBox("Please enter the number of record which you wish to view", "View Record")
 
Get #ChanNum, Record, TResults
 
PicRn.Print TResults.name
 PicRt.Print TResults.time
  
 Close #1
 
 End Sub
 
Private Sub CmdWrite_Click()
 
 RecordLen = Len(TResults)
 'ChanNum = FreeFile
 
userin = InputBox$("Please enter a filename ")
 
Filename = userin & ".txt"
Numero = InputBox("How many competitors in race?", "No People")
 
Open Filename For Random As #1
 
For Reccy = 1 To Numero
 
 Comp1.name = InputBox("Please enter Name for Lane " & Reccy)
 Comp1.time = InputBox("Please enter Time for Lane " & Reccy)
    picc1.Print (Comp1.name)
    pict1.Print (Comp1.time)
Put #1, Reccy, Comp1
 
Next Reccy
 
 Close #1
End Sub
 
Private Sub CmdDisplayFile_Click()
 
'DISPLAY CONTENTS OF FILE
 
Dim repeats As Integer
 
 RecordLen = Len(TResults)
 ChanNum = FreeFile
 
userin = InputBox$("Please enter a filename ")
 
Filename = userin & ".txt"
 
Open Filename For Random As #1
 
For repeats = 1 To 6
 
Get #ChanNum, repeats, Comp1
 
picc1.Print Comp1.name
 pict1.Print Comp1.time
 
Next repeats
 
 Close #1
 
 End Sub

Any ideas?

I know this seems awkward, using text files for a database, but the project has to use some of the stuff from the course and has to be of a specific level so I can’t use VB as a front end for a MS Excel database (I don’t think).

Any help would be much appreciated

[GRichG]

What I want to be able to do is store all the names of the competitors, event, heat, place and time in a single txt file, then from this extract the relevant data and sort all of the competitors in order by time.

I have seen things like this 25 years ago, but they were bad programs. That's why god made relational data.
You can still use text tables, but you will need to use a few of them and it will be a nightmare. If you can backend your code with an mdb or almost anything other than text you will be way ahead.
Can you do this?

[cleaco]

I have seen things like this 25 years ago, but they were bad programs. .... If you can backend your code with an mdb or almost anything other than text you will be way ahead.
Can you do this?

Yeah, I realise it probably isn't the best way (at all!) to do things!

I would use a backend database in Access but I'm not sure its up to the required level, or is it? I have to create something of reasonable complexity and use stuff from the computing course. Would using a backend database still be "complex" enough do you think but at the same time easy enough to do?

Thanks

[cleaco]

Sorry, I realise the original post maybe wasn't the clearest!

I know how to write to txt files using a record. After data has been written to a txt file I need to be able to read the data from the file back in to some other data structure in the program so that I can sort the data. I can read the data back into a record but what sort of data structure do you think would be the best, and is it able to be sorted?

This data can be read back into records, but how then do I select the data I want to sort, and sort it.
For Example:
Name Person A Person B Person C Person D Person E
Heat 1 1 1 2 2
Time 10 15 20 12 18

I want to select the people in heat 1 (Person A, B and C) and then sort them by Time.What would be the best way to do this?

Or more simply, if the competitors are already in order by time (with the fields Name, Heat, Position, Time) when written to file, how would I select all the competitors in who have Heat = 1?

Thanks

[cleaco]

Thanks for your help. I've decided to change the way I'm doing things aa using MS Excel and VBA to create a solution which is proving to be much more sensible.