[RESOLVED] number of ControlChars.NewLine

[twilitegxa]

How can I count the number of ControlChars.NewLine in my text file?

[twilitegxa]

I figured out two way to count the lines in the text file:

Dim lines As String() = IO.File.ReadAllLines("Survey.txt")
'MessageBox.Show("The file had " & lines.Length & " lines.")

And

Dim count As Integer

count = 0

Dim obj As StreamReader

obj = New StreamReader("Survey.txt")

Do Until obj.ReadLine Is Nothing

count = count + 1

Loop
obj.Close()
MessageBox.Show(count)

But how can I check how many records have been entered into the text file? I start a new record and separate them each with a new line (ControlChars.NewLine). Any help?

[twilitegxa]

Is there a way I could do a lop to check for the blank lines?

[motil]

what exactly you want to accomplish?

you want to know how many records the file has ? what is the format of the file? for each record there is one blank line? like so:

First Record
[blank line]
Second Record
[blank line]
etc ...?

[twilitegxa]

Yes, each record has a blank line separating them and i need to get the number of records. And it's just a text file.

[motil]

so correct me if i'm wrong, if each record is actually two lines and you have the number of line so this:

Dim lines As String() = IO.File.ReadAllLines("Survey.txt")
'MessageBox.Show("The file had " & lines.Length & " lines.")

And

Dim count As Integer

count = 0

Dim obj As StreamReader

obj = New StreamReader("Survey.txt")

Do Until obj.ReadLine Is Nothing

count = count + 1

Loop
obj.Close()
Dim NumberOfLines As Integer = count / 2
MessageBox.Show(NumberOfLines)

gives you the number of records?

[twilitegxa]

Hmmm...I didn't think of it that way...That wold probably work great. Thanks! I will try it and see what I get!

[stateofidleness]

use a For loop and have a counter variable increment by 1 with each line read. at the end of the loop, divide the counter variable by 2 and round down.

remember to use the backslash for the division "\".

lineCount \ 2 = numLineFeeds

[motil]

@stateofidleness what is the different between using the "/" to "\" when using division ?

[twilitegxa]

It worked! Thanks so much for your help!!!

[motil]

Glad i could help

Please mark thread as resolved.

[stateofidleness]

Division Operator '\, /'

There are two division operations, one of them is a forward slash '/' and the other is a backward slash '\'. The difference between the two is that the forward-slash division operator '/' will result in a floating point (Double) while the backward slash '\' will result in a integer.

Example:

15 / 4 = 3.75
15 \ 4 = 3


Motil's code is great, if the end result is an even number of lines. If there are 5 lines and you divide by 2, your number of line feeds will be 2.5. Not exactly what you're after. The backslash will return an integer (5\2 = 2) which would mean 2 line feeds:

0: Line of text 1
1: linefeed
2: Line of text 2
3: linefeed
4: Line of text 3

5 lines. divide it by 2 with "\" = 2 linefeeds

[motil]

Thanks for the info about the backslash stateofidlenes that's new to me.

well if the format is always like to OP says it is (Record + Empty line) then he never should have uneven number of lines.

Thanks again for the info.

[MattP]

Wouldn't it be better to get rid of the empty entries since the exact file format is unknown?

        Dim validRecords As String() = _
            IO.File.ReadAllText("theFile.txt").Split({ControlChars.CrLf}, StringSplitOptions.RemoveEmptyEntries)
        Dim numRecords As Integer = validRecords.Length