Question

Check for file name in a folder and rename accordingly

Asked by: GordonMasson

Hi

I am using Excel to produce an e-mail register and move some outlook files around& they are *.msg files
First step is I will drag the files from outlook and put them into a "to be processed" folder, any files that have the same name are renamed automatically

e.g.
I may have 3 e-mails all with the title
my message.msg

when I drag them into my "to be processed" folder they are automatically re-named

my message.msg
my message(1).msg
my message(2).msg

So far so good& I then want to open the files and do some work with them and then move them to another folder called "processed files"

Again that's fine.

The problem I have is that if I want to do the same with another batch of files at a later time then the new set of files may have the same names when they are in the "to be processed" folder e.g
my message.msg
my message(1).msg
my message(2).msg

we can live with that thenbecause the folder will have been empty but when they are moved into the "processed files" folder there will be a clash of file names.

So to recap,
I need a bit of code that checks to see if a file called ..... lets say ....."my message.msg"  exists in a specified folder.
If it does then check if any other files by the same name exist....."my message(1).msg" or "my message(2).msg" or "my message(6).msg"
Work out what the new name for the file will be & in this case it would be "my message(7).msg"

I will write the rest of the code around this bit if someone can help me out with this
Thanks

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Asked On
2009-04-03 at 07:34:50ID24292376
Topic

Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet Software

Participating Experts
1
Points
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Comments
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Answers

 

by: david251Posted on 2009-04-03 at 07:58:54ID: 24060639

Gordon,

I found the simplest way to accommodate this is for it not to happen, so I append the date and time to the filename.

However to do a check in the "processed files"  folder you can use this
StrTemp=Dir("C:\processed files\my message.msg" )
if StrTemp="" then msgbox("You have a duplicate")

HTH,
-David251

 

by: david251Posted on 2009-04-03 at 07:59:50ID: 24060645

sorry I had a typo, should have been:
StrTemp=Dir("C:\processed files\my message.msg" )
if StrTemp<>"" then msgbox("You have a duplicate")

 

by: GordonMassonPosted on 2009-04-03 at 08:10:31ID: 24060770

Hi David

Couple of points there.
First isnt there a possibility that you could have two e-mails with the same date and time if you reply to someone as soon as a mail is received or would the date and time include seconds?
How would yo udo that anyway?

Secondly the code will check if the file alreay exists but its not looking for the highest varient of the file in the folder. There could be several files with the same name but different numbers ......"my message(1).msg" or "my message(2).msg" or "my message(6).msg"

Thanks

 

by: david251Posted on 2009-04-03 at 08:26:27ID: 24060968

To answer your 1st question, It is possible but, it does include seconds.
You can use a funtion like this to extract the date.

Function ShowDateCreated(filespec)
   Dim fso, f
   Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
   Set f = fso.GetFile(filespec)
   ShowDateCreated = f.DateCreated
End Function

Your second question is a little more difficult.
I will work on it if you think there might be a mesage with the same datetime.

-david251


 

by: GordonMassonPosted on 2009-04-03 at 08:31:19ID: 24061028

I assume you mean that it doesnt include seconds rather than it does include seconds .... in your reply?

It is possible that you will have two e-mails with the same name and date/time so it would be the preference to find a fix for that.

Thanks

Gordon

 

by: david251Posted on 2009-04-03 at 08:33:33ID: 24061061

It DOES include Seconds

 

by: david251Posted on 2009-04-03 at 08:50:57ID: 24061292

You can use the function ftnNameCount to count the number of instances of a name
You need to pass the folename like this:
ftnNameCount("C:\processed files\my message*.msg")

The asterisk will is a wildcard character.

The result of the function is the number of files matching the strFilename value.
Then append the result to the filename
-David251

Function ftnNameCount(strFilename As String) As Long
    Dim lngFileCount As Long
    lngFileCount = 0
    'StrTemp = Dir("C:\processed files\my message.msg")
    strTemp = Dir(strFilename)
    Do Until strTemp = ""
        lngFileCount = lngFileCount + 1
        If strTemp <> "" Then strTemp = Dir
    Loop
    ftnNameCount = lngFileCount
End Function
 
 
Function ShowDateCreated(filespec)
   Dim fso, f
   Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
   Set f = fso.GetFile(filespec)
   ShowDateCreated = f.DateCreated
End Function
                                              
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by: GordonMassonPosted on 2009-04-06 at 01:43:24ID: 31566257

Thanks for your help

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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