Writing to a pre-existing file: existing, file, writing

Writing to a pre-existing file

here is my dilemma, I have a file with data seperated by {}'s and then again by carriage returns. example

{person 1}{height}{weight}{haircolor}
{person 2}{height}{weight}{haircolor}

and so on. I wrote a program to read the file in and i can now browse through it and make changes however i'm having trouble on how i can write these changes back. I want to have the file write the data back based on the persons name, so i figured out how to strip that out so i know what line to write back on.
I tried a random access file and that didn't work because all of the records have to be the same length, a sequential file writes back in text strings with the ""'s around everything, and appending wont work becuase i want to edit the data that is already there. any ideas would be really helpful.

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try this:

Use ReadData() to load all the data into the collection. You'll have all the data in your collection object. Use WriteData() to write it back into the text file. Whatever editing u perform will be only on the collection object only and you have the option of providing a "cancel edit" also by which you can revert back to your original data by just clearing the collection and calling the ReadData() again.

Dim objFileSystemObject As Scripting.FileSystemObject
Dim objTextStream As Scripting.TextStream
Dim objData As Collection
Dim strFileName As String

Private Sub Form_Load()
Set objFileSystemObject = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objData = New Collection
strFileName = "c:\test.txt"
End Sub

Private Sub Form_Unload(Cancel As Integer)
On Error Resume Next
objTextStream.Close
Set objTextStream = Nothing
Set objFileSystemObject = Nothing
Set objData = Nothing
End Sub

Function ReadData()
Set objTextStream = objFileSystemObject.OpenTextFile(strFileName)
While Not objTextStream.AtEndOfLine
objData.Add objTextStream.ReadLine
Wend
Set objTextStream = Nothing
End Function

Function WriteData()
Dim i As Long
Set objTextStream = objFileSystemObject.CreateTextFile(strFileName, True)
For i = 1 To objData.Count
objTextStream.WriteLine objData.Item(i)
Next
Set objTextStream = Nothing
End Function

cheers,
srimanth.

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Writing to a pre-existing file

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existing

file

writing

Visual Basic Programming

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