Kill App.Path & "\Accounts.dat"

Lost in code,

--

Randy Birch
MVP Visual Basic

http://www.mvps.org/vbnet/

Please respond only to the newsgroups so all can benefit.

*** If you call the Sleep API in Bill's latest, will it have .NET dreams?
***

Mike

--
MikeC

Private Function QualifyPath(sPath As String) As String

  'assures that a passed path ends in a slash
   If Right$(sPath, 1) <> "\" Then
         QualifyPath = sPath & "\"
   Else: QualifyPath = sPath
   End If

End Function

Call as in:

Kill QualifyPath(App.Path) & "Accounts.dat"

If App.Path already has a trailing \, its not added.

--

Randy Birch
MVP Visual Basic

http://www.mvps.org/vbnet/

Please respond only to the newsgroups so all can benefit.

*** If you call the Sleep API in Bill's latest, will it have .NET dreams?
***

dim victim as string
victim = pathify(app.path, "accounts.dat")
setattr victim, vbnormal
kill victim

Here's the source code for Pathify:

 URL:http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=u5bs8opg0p6n92%40corp.supernews.com

sorry for my frustration, if I didn't have a very short time frame to learn
this, it would be fun.

Thanks for all your help guys, but it still won't work and I don't know
enough to even point to another possible problem.

only hours left to go, and no sleep in sight.  anyone else been here?
Judy

If your app.path happens to be in the root of drive it'll fail because
of this.:  app.path being "x:\"  
 "x:\" & "\Accounts.dat" =  "x:\\Accounts.dat"
If you have the file open, or another process has that file open
you'll get an error as well.

I change this, I change that and I get different errors.

Here's the code I have for that sub,  now i"m getting a run time error.
Input past end of file

Public Sub SaveAccountBalance()

    Dim intFileHandleInput As Integer           'variable to store file
number
    Dim intFileHandleOutput As Integer          'variable to store file
number
    Dim strAccountNumber As String              'variable to store account
number
    Dim sngChequingAccountBalance As Single     'variable to store chequing
account balance
    Dim sngSavingsAccountBalance As Single      'variable to store savings
account balance

    'read and write accounts info excepts the account to be updated
    intFileHandleInput = FreeFile
    Open App.Path & "\Accounts.dat" For Input As #intFileHandleInput
    intFileHandleOutput = FreeFile
    Open App.Path & "\AccountsTemp.dat" For Output As #intFileHandleOutput
    Do While Not EOF(intFileHandleInput)
        Input #intFileHandleInput, strAccountNumber,
sngChequingAccountBalance, sngSavingsAccountBalance
        If strAccountNumber <> gstrUserAccountNumber Then
            Write #intFileHandleOutput, strAccountNumber,
sngChequingAccountBalance, sngSavingsAccountBalance
        End If
    Loop
    Close #intFileHandleInput

    'update the account
    Write #intFileHandleOutput, gstrUserAccountNumber,
gsngUserChequingAccountBalance, _
                                    gsngUserSavingsAccountBalance
    Close #intFileHandleOutput

    'replace the temp file as original file
    Kill App.Path & "Accounts.dat"
    Name App.Path & "AccountsTemp.dat" As App.Path & "Accounts.dat"

End Sub

I've had a look at the code (that you sent me by email) and it is fairly
straightforward code that is supposed to open a standard "flat file"
database (a standard text file, really). That file (according to your code)
contains a number of separate bank accounts. Each account has an account
number (a string of text) and two separate balances (both held as Singles) -
a Chequing Account Balance and a Savings Account Balance. The code attempts
to read through the entire "flat file" database, looking for a specific
account number. It loads the accounts in, one by one, with the line:

Input #intFileHandleInput, strAccountNumber, sngChequingAccountBalance,
sngSavingsAccountBalance

(The above should all be on one line, but Outlook Express will probably
break it into two lines)

This gives it three variables. The first contains the account number, the
seconds contains the Chequing Account Balance and the third contains the
Savings Account Balance.

It then checks the strAccountNumber variable to see if it is the account it
is looking for. If it is not then it writes those three itens out to a
temporary file.

It repeats this process for each account in the file. Eventually, it will
have read every account in the existing file and copied that exact data into
a temporary file, except for the account it was looking for (whether it
found it or not) which it hasn't written out at all. Then, at the end of the
loop, it writes out the details for that account.

The file that it is reading would look something like this (the example
contains three accounts):

"ZQW-430-1135", 999.99, 345.85
"HJK-666-2345", 127.99, 2376.56
"PXJ-570-3357", 123.45, 48.59

This is a silly way of doing things, but what the hell - it seems to be what
your teacher is teaching you!

I've tried your code, and providing I set up three public variables
(gstrUserAccountNumber, gsngUserChequingAccountBalance and
gsngUserSavingsAccountBalance) before I call your routine then it works
fine. Are you sure that you are declaring those three variables somewhere?

There will be a problem, of course, if your app.path happens to be in the
root directory (as I and other have already mentioned), but you can write
code to check for the backslash.

Here is your own code, amended for the "backslash" stuff. It works fine
(provided that the three public variables that I mentioned are declared
somewhere):

Public Sub SaveAccountBalance()
Dim intFileHandleInput As Integer 'file Number
Dim intFileHandleOutput As Integer 'file Number
Dim strAccountNumber As String 'account Number
Dim sngChequingAccountBalance As Single 'chequing balance
Dim sngSavingsAccountBalance As Single 'savings balance
intFileHandleInput = FreeFile
Dim s1 As String
s1 = App.Path
If Right(s1, 1) <> "\" Then s1 = s1 + "\"
Open s1 & "Accounts.dat" For Input As #intFileHandleInput
intFileHandleOutput = FreeFile
Open App.Path & "\AccountsTemp.dat" _
   For Output As #intFileHandleOutput
Do While Not EOF(intFileHandleInput)
  Input #intFileHandleInput, strAccountNumber, _
  sngChequingAccountBalance, sngSavingsAccountBalance
  If strAccountNumber <> gstrUserAccountNumber Then
    Write #intFileHandleOutput, strAccountNumber, _
    sngChequingAccountBalance, sngSavingsAccountBalance
  End If
Loop
Close #intFileHandleInput
'update the account
Write #intFileHandleOutput, gstrUserAccountNumber, _
  gsngUserChequingAccountBalance, _
  gsngUserSavingsAccountBalance
Close #intFileHandleOutput
'replace the temp file as original file
Kill s1 & "Accounts.dat"
Name s1 & "AccountsTemp.dat" As s1 & "Accounts.dat"
End Sub

Note that I have "split" some of the longer code lines (using a space +
underscore) into two or three separate lines, otherwise this silly Outlook
Express will break those lines up for me and the code will not run properly.

It works fine this end (except that it is a very silly way to do such
stuff!) provided that you have some variables declared in your Form
(general) (declarations) section (or elsewhere). Something like:

Option Explicit
Public gstrUserAccountNumber
Public gsngUserChequingAccountBalance
Public gsngUserSavingsAccountBalance

Note that if the above variables are declared in the same Form as the code
then they can be declared as Private, but the fact that your "teacher" (for
want of a better word!) has prefixed their names by "g" then I imagine he
wants them to be Public (Global). Yuck!

Judy, i never saw our reply.. but whatever he said :)
Since you are reusing the same filename, it may be smart idea to
declare a string and assign it to it.
That way you can both debug it easier and as the man said, keep it
consistent.

Private Sub Form_Load()
    Const DIFFICULTY = 10 ' beginner
    Me.Show
    Randomize Timer
    Dim i As Integer, errNo As Integer
    Do
        i = Val(InputBox("Guess the error"))
        errNo = Int(Rnd * DIFFICULTY) + 1
        If errNo = i Then        
            On Error Resume Next
            Else
                On Error GoTo 0
        End If
        err.Raise errNo, , "You Lose !"
    Loop Until i = 0
End Sub

The aim of the game is to make it loop twice. ;-)

Public Sub SaveAccountBalance()

         strInFile = App.Path &  IIf(Right$(App.Path,1 = "\",
         "","\") &  "Accounts.dat"
         strOutFile = App.Path &  IIf(Right$(App.Path,1 = "\",
         "","\") &  "AccountsTemp.dat"
        ' That should do it for the proper filenames

        Open App.Path & strFileName For Input As #intFileHandleInput
        If Err Then ' can't open input.. Dive - dive !!
                MsgBox( "Invalid Input Path/File name : " & vbCrlf & _
strFilename)
                Exit Sub
        End If

        On Error GoTo DONE ' now we get dirty and specific.

Brass knuckles..check, big stick..check, clue..check, suppository
inserting stick.. check . I think i have all i need to talk some sense
into that snotty IT kid (read: helpdesk "professional"), who told me
that there is no problem detected on their side and i should check my
settings. ;-)  

Dammit.