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Visual Basic 6 Programming Blue Book: The Most Complete, Hands-On Resource for Writing Programs with Microsoft Visual Basic 6!
(Publisher: The Coriolis Group)
Author(s): Peter G. Aitken
ISBN: 1576102815
Publication Date: 08/01/98

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Table 14.4 The File object’s methods.

Method Description
Copy dest [, overwrite] Copies the file to dest. An existing file is overwritten only if overwrite is True (the default).
Move dest Moves the file to dest.
Delete [force] Deletes the files. Read-only files are deleted only if force is True. The default is False.
OpenAsTextStream Opens the file and returns a TextStream object. See Chapter 13 for details.

Table 14.5 The File object’s properties.

Property Description
Attributes Returns a value summarizing the file’s attributes, as explained in detail later.
DateCreated Date and time the file was created.
DateLastAccessed Date and time the file was last accessed.
DateLastModified Date and time the file was last modified.
Drive Drive letter of the drive where the file resides.
Name Sets or returns the name of the file.
ParentFolder Returns a Folder object representing the file’s parent folder.
Path The path of the file, including drive letter.
ShortName The short file name used by programs that require the old 8.3 style naming convention.
ShortPath The short path used by programs that require the old 8.3 style naming convention.
Size The size, in bytes, of the file.
Type Returns information about the type of the file (explained in more detail later).

Table 14.6 Values of the Attribute property.

Attribute Value Description
Normal 0 Normal file. No attributes are set.
ReadOnly 1 Read-only file. Read/write.
Hidden 2 Hidden file. Read/write.
System 4 System file. Read/write.
Volume 8 Disk drive volume label. Read-only.
Directory 16 Folder or directory. Read-only.
Archive 32 File has changed since last backup. Read/write.
Alias 64 Link or shortcut. Read-only.
Compressed 128 Compressed file. Read-only.

You use Visual Basic’s logical operators to convert between individual file attributes and the value of the Attributes property. Use And to determine if a specific attribute is set. If f is a File object, then we can write the following code to determine if the file’s Archive attribute is set:

If f.Attributes And 32 Then
        ‘ Archive attribute is set.
Else
‘ Archive attribute is not set.
End If

Likewise, the following code checks to see if the file’s ReadOnly attribute is set and, if it is, clears it:

If f.Attributes And 1 Then
        f.Attributes = f.Attributes - 1
End If

To perform the reverse—setting the ReadOnly attribute if it is not already set—we would write the following:

If Not f.Attributes And 1 Then
        f.Attributes = f.Attributes + 1
End If

The File-Related Controls

Most of what you will do with files in Visual Basic will use the Basic statements, functions, and objects presented so far. Other types of file access—such as loading a picture into a Picture Box control—are handled more or less automatically by the associated control. Three Visual Basic controls, however, have been designed specifically to work with files: FileListBox, DirListBox, and DriveListBox. These controls are the topic of this section.

The file-related controls are designed to help you navigate your system’s disk drives. Think of how things are arranged on the disk. Each disk, or drive, is identified by a letter followed by a colon. On each drive are one or more folders, or subdirectories, arranged in a hierarchical structure. In each folder are one or more files, each with its own name. A folder can also contain other folders, or it can be empty. Thus, locating any file is a three-tiered process: drive, folder, file name. One control is designed to deal with each of these three levels.


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