Open notepad and delete character (VB6)

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I have a vb6 project. I need to open a text file in notepad and delete all the underscore characters in it. I found this code to open notepad and open a text file but how do i search through it and delete all the underscore characters. Thank you for the help.

Shell “Notepad.exe” & ” ” & “c:Temp.txt”, vbMaximizedFocus

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Don’t think you can “automate” Notepad, it’s not an Automation server, an alternative option would be to use the Scripting FileSystemObject and TextStream objects. Sample code:

Public Sub TestOpenTextFile()

OpenTextFile strPath:="C:Access", _
strFile:="TextFile1.txt", _
strNewFile:="TextFile2.txt", _
strFind:="_", _
strReplace:=vbNullString
End Sub

Private Sub OpenTextFile(ByRef strPath As String, _
ByRef strFile As String, _
ByRef strNewFile As String, _
ByRef strFind As String, _
ByRef strReplace As String)
On Error GoTo Err_Handler

' Requires reference to Scripting Runtime Library
Dim fso As New Scripting.FileSystemObject
Dim txt As Scripting.TextStream
Dim strText As String
Dim strMsg As String

If fso.FileExists(strPath & "" & strFile) Then
' Open for reading:
Set txt = fso.OpenTextFile(Filename:=strPath & "" & strFile, _
IOMode:=ForReading, _
Create:=False, _
Format:=TristateUseDefault)
' Read whole file:
strText = txt.ReadAll
txt.Close
Set txt = Nothing

' Open new file (delete existing file if any):
If fso.FileExists(strPath & "" & strNewFile) Then
fso.DeleteFile strPath & "" & strNewFile, True
End If

Set txt = fso.OpenTextFile(Filename:=strPath & "" & strNewFile, _
IOMode:=ForAppending, _
Create:=True, _
Format:=TristateUseDefault)
strText = Replace(strText, strFind, strReplace, , , vbBinaryCompare)
txt.Write strText
txt.Close

' Save new file over original:
fso.CopyFile strPath & "" & strNewFile, strPath & "" & strFile, True
fso.DeleteFile strPath & "" & strNewFile
Else
MsgBox "File not found.", vbExclamation, "FILE NOT FOUND"
End If

Exit_Sub:
Set fso = Nothing
Set txt = Nothing
Exit Sub
Err_Handler:
strMsg = "Error No " & Err.Number & ": " & Err.Description
MsgBox strMsg, vbExclamation, "OPEN TEXT FILE ERROR MSG"
Resume Exit_Sub
End Sub

Note: Requires reference to Microsoft Scripting Runtime library (SCRRUN.DLL). To delete character, simply specify a null string (vbNullString or “”) for the strReplace argument, as illustrated. Modify code as required. For more info, look up FileSystemObject and TextStream objects in VB/VBA Help.

HTH

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Don’t think you can “automate” Notepad, it’s not an Automation server, an alternative option would be to use the Scripting FileSystemObject and TextStream objects. Sample code:

Public Sub TestOpenTextFile()

OpenTextFile strPath:="C:Access", _
strFile:="TextFile1.txt", _
strNewFile:="TextFile2.txt", _
strFind:="_", _
strReplace:=vbNullString
End Sub

Private Sub OpenTextFile(ByRef strPath As String, _
ByRef strFile As String, _
ByRef strNewFile As String, _
ByRef strFind As String, _
ByRef strReplace As String)
On Error GoTo Err_Handler

' Requires reference to Scripting Runtime Library
Dim fso As New Scripting.FileSystemObject
Dim txt As Scripting.TextStream
Dim strText As String
Dim strMsg As String

If fso.FileExists(strPath & "" & strFile) Then
' Open for reading:
Set txt = fso.OpenTextFile(Filename:=strPath & "" & strFile, _
IOMode:=ForReading, _
Create:=False, _
Format:=TristateUseDefault)
' Read whole file:
strText = txt.ReadAll
txt.Close
Set txt = Nothing

' Open new file (delete existing file if any):
If fso.FileExists(strPath & "" & strNewFile) Then
fso.DeleteFile strPath & "" & strNewFile, True
End If

Set txt = fso.OpenTextFile(Filename:=strPath & "" & strNewFile, _
IOMode:=ForAppending, _
Create:=True, _
Format:=TristateUseDefault)
strText = Replace(strText, strFind, strReplace, , , vbBinaryCompare)
txt.Write strText
txt.Close

' Save new file over original:
fso.CopyFile strPath & "" & strNewFile, strPath & "" & strFile, True
fso.DeleteFile strPath & "" & strNewFile
Else
MsgBox "File not found.", vbExclamation, "FILE NOT FOUND"
End If

Exit_Sub:
Set fso = Nothing
Set txt = Nothing
Exit Sub
Err_Handler:
strMsg = "Error No " & Err.Number & ": " & Err.Description
MsgBox strMsg, vbExclamation, "OPEN TEXT FILE ERROR MSG"
Resume Exit_Sub
End Sub

Note: Requires reference to Microsoft Scripting Runtime library (SCRRUN.DLL). To delete character, simply specify a null string (vbNullString or “”) for the strReplace argument, as illustrated. Modify code as required. For more info, look up FileSystemObject and TextStream objects in VB/VBA Help.

HTH

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This will do what you want, without Notepad, and is a little shorter then Mark’s code.

Dim f As Long
Dim strPath as String
Dim strTemp as String
strPath=”C:Temp.txt”
f=freefile
Open strPath for Binary Access Read as f
strTemp=space(lof(f))
close f
kill strPath
strTemp=Replace(strTemp,”_”,””)
f=freefile
Open strPath for Binary Access Write as f
put f,,strTemp
close f

And that would do it.

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Drew,

You never read the contents of the file, so the string strTemp will consist of a lot of spaces. You write this string into the new file, effectively ruining it. You need to add one line to the code:

Dim f As Long
Dim strPath As String
Dim strTemp As String
strPath = “C:Documents and SettingsHansMijn documentenWord-bestandenTest.txt”
f = FreeFile
Open strPath For Binary Access Read As #f
strTemp = Space(LOF(f))
Get #f, , strTemp
Close #f
Kill strPath
strTemp = Replace(strTemp, “_”, “”)
f = FreeFile
Open strPath For Binary Access Write As #f
Put #f, , strTemp
Close #f

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thank u all very much

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thank u all very much

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LOL, you’re absolutely right. That’s what I get for writing code in the lounge, I skipped a step, and didn’t debug it! Oh Well, no one is perfect!

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LOL, you’re absolutely right. That’s what I get for writing code in the lounge, I skipped a step, and didn’t debug it! Oh Well, no one is perfect!

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I’m not too familiar with these methods. Is there a quick and dirty way to modify this code to read line by line rather than replace on the entire text file content?

The problem I’m looking to resolve is that when I save certain files from PDF to text, tables of numbers which only contain spaces and number 0 – 9 show in the text file like this, and import to Excel fine:

99 98 101 3

but as soon as they run into thousands and a comma is included in the line, the line gets quoted as if it were text:

“99 1,321 101 3″

and after

Workbooks.OpenText Filename:=strFileName, Origin:=xlWindows, _
StartRow:=1, DataType:=xlFixedWidth, OtherChar:=False, _
FieldInfo:=Array(Array(0, 1), Array(32767, 1)), _
DecimalSeparator:=”.”, ThousandsSeparator:=”,”, TrailingMinusNumbers:=True

it is in turn munging my TextToColumns operation; they don’t work on the quoted lines. I have modified the above code to strip out all quote charcters, but that messes with some other parts of the text file content. TIA for any advice.

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The code in the reply you refer to reads a binary file. To read a text file, you can open it for Input and read it line by line using Line Input:

Dim f As Long
Dim strTemp As String
f = FreeFile

‘ Open the file
Open “C:Test.txt” For Input As #f

‘ Loop through the file
Do While Not EOF(f)
‘ Read a line
Line Input #f, strTemp
‘ Do something with strTemp
Debug.Print strTemp
Loop

‘ Close the file
Close #f

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Thanks, Hans. I get it, and I have it working.

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Drew,

You never read the contents of the file, so the string strTemp will consist of a lot of spaces. You write this string into the new file, effectively ruining it. You need to add one line to the code:

Dim f As Long
Dim strPath As String
Dim strTemp As String
strPath = “C:Documents and SettingsHansMijn documentenWord-bestandenTest.txt”
f = FreeFile
Open strPath For Binary Access Read As #f
strTemp = Space(LOF(f))
Get #f, , strTemp
Close #f
Kill strPath
strTemp = Replace(strTemp, “_”, “”)
f = FreeFile
Open strPath For Binary Access Write As #f
Put #f, , strTemp
Close #f

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This will do what you want, without Notepad, and is a little shorter then Mark’s code.

Dim f As Long
Dim strPath as String
Dim strTemp as String
strPath=”C:Temp.txt”
f=freefile
Open strPath for Binary Access Read as f
strTemp=space(lof(f))
close f
kill strPath
strTemp=Replace(strTemp,”_”,””)
f=freefile
Open strPath for Binary Access Write as f
put f,,strTemp
close f

And that would do it.

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If you want to achieve this using a single command line, like in your script, you could use one of the many little purpose-built DOS utilities to shell to. For instance alter (at only 7KB) could be used in your Shell command as (something like):

command /c alter c:temp.txt “_” “”

Alan

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