Notes tests, text files, manipulation of text files in Excel and with Excel VBA CSV stuff

**DocAElstein** · 11-29-2020, 12:28 PM

Dec 2020-11-29

If I make text file with nothing in it and then after look at the text file with the following macro ..._

Code:

' A virgin text file
Sub AVirginTextFile()
' 1    Make a virgin text file
Dim FileNum2 As Long: Let FileNum2 = FreeFile(0)                                  ' https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vba/language-reference-vba/articles/freefile-function
Dim PathAndFileName2 As String
 Let PathAndFileName2 = ThisWorkbook.Path & "\" & "NoText.txt"  ' CHANGE path TO SUIT
 Open PathAndFileName2 For Output As #FileNum2
Dim NoText As String
 Print #FileNum2, NoText ' write out entire text file, the file is made if not there
 Close #FileNum2
' 2a)  Get the text file as a long single string
Dim FileNum As Long: Let FileNum = FreeFile(1)                                    ' https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vba/language-reference-vba/articles/freefile-function
Dim PathAndFileName As String, TotalFile As String
 Let PathAndFileName = ThisWorkbook.Path & Application.PathSeparator & "NoText.txt"   '                                                               CHANGE TO SUIT                                                                                                         From vixer zyxw1234  : http://www.eileenslounge.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=34629     DF.txt https://app.box.com/s/gw941dh9v8sqhvzin3lo9rfc67fjsbic
Open PathAndFileName For Binary As #FileNum 'Open Route to data. Binary is a fundamental type data input...
 Let TotalFile = Space(LOF(FileNum)) '....and wot receives it has to be a string of exactly the right length
Get #FileNum, , TotalFile                                               'Debug.Print TotalFile
Close #FileNum
 Call WtchaGot_Unic_NotMuchIfYaChoppedItOff(TotalFile)
End Sub

_... then I will see nothing at all in Notepad, and from my WotchaGot function it will tell me that I have
vbCr & vbLf

If I Let NoText = "x" , and repeat the experiment, I see in notepad .._

Code:

_.. and my function tells me that I have
"x" & vbCr & vbLf

Here are some more experiments, and the results:
Let NoText = "x" & vbCr & "x"
"x" & vbCr & "x" & vbCr & vbLf

Code:

xx

Let NoText = "x" & vbLf & "x"
"x" & vbLf & "x" & vbCr & vbLf

Code:

xx

Let NoText = "x" & vbCr & vbLf & "x"
"x" & vbCr & vbLf & "x" & vbCr & vbLf

Code:

x
x

Let NoText = "x" & vbLf & vbCr & "x"
"x" & vbLf & vbCr & "x" & vbCr & vbLf

Code:

xx

If I repeat the experiment using extension .csv instead of .txt everywhere in my macro, then the results are identical.
So it appears that notepad only recognises the pair vbCr & vbLf as a new line

( Note: if I open any of the files ( .txt or .csv ) in Excel , using any default settings, then for the case of the vbLf or the vbCr or the pair vbCr & vbLf then Excel always seems to add a line and I see
_____ Workbook: NoText.txt ( Using Excel 2007 32 bit )

_Row\^Col	A
1	x
2	x

Worksheet: NoText
_____ Workbook: NoText.csv ( Using Excel 2007 32 bit )

_Row\^Col	A
1	x
2	x

Worksheet: NoText

For the case of using vbLf & vbCr, using the default settings opening in Excel the .txt file also gives the same result, but strangely for the .csv file we see an extra line
_____ Workbook: NoText.csv ( Using Excel 2007 32 bit )

_Row\^Col	A
1	x
2
3	x

Worksheet: NoText

**DocAElstein** · 02-17-2021, 06:53 PM

**DocAElstein** · 02-17-2021, 06:53 PM

Following on, and in support of, these Forum Posts:
http://www.eileenslounge.com/viewtop...292266#p292266
https://excelfox.com/forum/showthrea...ge51#post12776

In one of those Posts we figured out how to get a text file 3 column list of the service´s Name , DisplayName and StartType, using a single PowerShell script commandlet.
Here I want to automate that a bit.
First I reduced the text file a bit to this

Code:

 
Name                                                   DisplayName                                                                                  StartType
----                                                   -----------                                                                                  ---------
AarSvc_72b48                                           Agent Activation Runtime_72b48                                                                  Manual
AJRouter                                               AllJoyn-Routerdienst                                                                            Manual
ALG                                                    Gatewaydienst auf Anwendungsebene                                                               Manual
ApHidMonitorService                                    AlpsAlpine SMBus Monitor Service                                                             Automatic

The I took a look using this

Code:

Sub LookInFirstBitOfTextString()  '  https://excelfox.com/forum/showthread.php/2408-Windows-10-and-Office-Excel/page51#post12776
' Get the text file as a long single string
Dim FileNum As Long: Let FileNum = FreeFile(1)                                    ' https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vba/language-reference-vba/articles/freefile-function
Dim PathAndFileName As String, TotalFile As String
 Let PathAndFileName = ThisWorkbook.Path & Application.PathSeparator & "test4lines.txt"   '                                                               CHANGE TO SUIT                                                                                                         From vixer zyxw1234  : http://www.eileenslounge.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=34629     DF.txt https://app.box.com/s/gw941dh9v8sqhvzin3lo9rfc67fjsbic
Open PathAndFileName For Binary As #FileNum 'Open Route to data. Binary is a fundamental type data input...
 Let TotalFile = Space(LOF(FileNum)) '....and wot receives it has to be a string of exactly the right length
Get #FileNum, , TotalFile                                               'Debug.Print TotalFile
Close #FileNum
 Call WtchaGot_Unic_NotMuchIfYaChoppedItOff(TotalFile)
End Sub

That produced a total strong with rather a lot of CHR(0)s
https://i.postimg.cc/t43HCQr9/Rather...of-Chr-0-s.jpg

So I modified the code a bit to take them out, since I am not too interested in them, and I am not sure what they might do. This is a mod I would most likely want to do permanently, and initially now, I would like to do it as its obscuring the main stuff I want to see: That is easily done with TotalFile = Replace(TotalFile, Chr(0), "", 1, -1, vbBinaryCompare)
After that it looks a bit better.
I have 4 characters at the start, Chr(255) Chr(254) vbCr vbLf , which I can probably do away with as well, same again: TotalFile = Replace(TotalFile, Chr(255) & Chr(254) & vbCr & vbLf , "", 1, 1, vbBinaryCompare) ( Altertnativel we can just consider the Chr(255) & Chr(254) as the first line and disregard that later.)
The title line I could probably do away with as well, as I know what it is, or rather I know the 3 header words that I am interested in, as well as the order that they come in, "Name DisplayName StartType"
and
I can forget about the second line as well, as it seems to be just some dashes used to underline the headers.
So I will be disregarding the first 2 ( or 3 ) lines

The line separator is as expected, vbCr & vbLf . ( There are few extra trailing ones. I can leave those, as I don’t think they will confuse much of my further plans for manipulating the total string

My plan will be to split by the vbCr & vbLf to get 1 dimensional array or the rows.
The separator just seems to be a lot of spaces. As I have three text things that I want on each row, and they appear to have no spaces in them, I can do a simple bit of text manipulation to get at those three words at each row.
After that, putting each word in a “row” of a 2 D array of 3 “columns” will be convenient to then paste out in an Excel worksheet

This does all that

Code:

' make array for output
Dim arrOut() As String: ReDim arrOut(1 To UBound(arrRws()) - 2, 1 To 3) ' we are ignoring the first 3 lines. The  UBound  of the 1 dimensional array is already 1 less then the lines we need because a 1 dimensional array starts at 0
Dim Cnt As Long
    For Cnt = 1 To UBound(arrRws()) - 2
        If arrRws(Cnt + 2) = "" Then
        ' This should occur at the last empty rows, so we could consider jumping out of the loop here
        Else
        ' time to split the line string
        Dim Pos1 As Long: Let Pos1 = InStr(1, arrRws(Cnt + 2), "  ", vbBinaryCompare)
        Dim Nme As String: Let Nme = Left(arrRws(Cnt + 2), Pos1 - 1)
        Dim Pos3 As Long: Let Pos3 = Len(arrRws(Cnt + 2)) - InStrRev(arrRws(Cnt + 2), "  ", -1, vbBinaryCompare)
        Dim StrtTyp As String: Let StrtTyp = Right(arrRws(Cnt + 2), Pos3)
        Dim DispNme As String: Let DispNme = Replace(arrRws(Cnt + 2), Nme, "", 1, -1, vbBinaryCompare)
         Let DispNme = Replace(DispNme, StrtTyp, "", 1, -1, vbBinaryCompare)
         Let DispNme = Trim(DispNme)
        ' fill the array for output
         Let arrOut(Cnt, 1) = Nme: arrOut(Cnt, 2) = DispNme: arrOut(Cnt, 3) = StrtTyp
        End If

    Next Cnt