VB6 Read Text File

With this artcle, I am going to explain various ways we can Read Text File into a string variable using Classic VisualBasic.

The first and easy way to acess a txt file is using the simple open method available in VB. For this method, we need to allocate a unique file number for opening. And the same number should be used to close.

There are various modes to open some of them are Append, Binary, Input, Output, or Random. by default Random will be used.

In this code I have closed the connection after error has been handled(or intended to be handled). This close method  will not do anything if the file number is not used to open. so it is safe even error has been occured before opening.

Using FileSystemObject in VB6 Read Text File

With FileSystemObject File IO operations are very easier in VB. Almost all the required functions are well defined. For reading, we hav ...

Write a text file from string

This is a sample program to write text file from string. The string should be well formed, The string will be written as it is. So the line breaks should be placed when prearing the string before passing it to the function.

Visual basic is a nice language to write a simple File.Io operations. It is not only simpler to write but also very easy to debug. Using this kind of helpers can improve the code re-usablity also.I have written already a lot of articles related to File operations like reading file, searching files using regular expressions.

There are various ways to read write files.  I prefer the file system objects to handle the file system, As it looks very neat and easy to be handled. When ever working in file stream it is really necessary to close the stream. Otherwise it will be really not efficient.

By using the IsOverwrite parameter we can append text to the existing file. If IsOverwrite is false then the tex ...

Grouping data in the ASP.Net GridView

 Presenting a grouped data in the standard GridView is really a tough task to get it to a satisfactory level. If you ever worked in Spreadsheets to group the data, you may have seen that the merge functionality gives a very good presentation for the grouped data

Note:

1) As it is already explained in earlier articles several times, I am not going to explain again how to get the data and how to bind the data from database. So please refer to the Asp.net DataControls section or GridView section for that matter.
2) Northwind database is used for samples, this database can be downloaded from MSDN
3) This sample is to explain how to have this merge functionality using row span attribute of the cell. So it may be a tough task to extend this task to get two or more columns to have this merge functionality.

RowSpan and ColSpan in HTML TD

In HTML TD we can use the COL span to spread a single ...

ListView and Templates

ListView is a fantastic control when you want to render the tabular data in a customized way. It gives you a lot of templates to work with. These templates will improve the most used functionalities. This article explains about one of them, which is GroupTemplate.

What is not covered?

The basic functionalities of ListView and how to bind the data to DataSource from SQL database are not covered in this article. Please refer to the ASP.Net Data Controls section for that.

LayoutTemplate

This template is used mainly for determining the basic layout the control supposed to render. So in our case this will hold the groups. Further groups hold their respective items. Hence we need to specify the GroupPlaceholderID to the layout template not to the GroupTemplate.  I have placed a silver colored (as a background) box to contain all group boxes.

GroupTemplate

As I already mentioned in the previous paragraph, we sup ...

DataBinding GridView with Asp.net Array List

DataBinding is an integral part in developing GUI intensive applications. It really eases the job of populating the data into the control from respective DataSource. The DataSource is usually being an IEnumerator. Means all the objects that implement an IEnumerator can be used to bind the controls.
GridView DataBinding
Though Binding a GridView is very simple task in VB.Net, the following is essential. Understanding
• how to use a DataSource
• Once the DataSource is given how to bind the data.
Why ArrayList over Array?
The reason behind I have chosen ArrayList over array is, because of the ease of use. The array needs to be re dim every time when the number of elements is changed. If you want to add a new item then you have to re dim the array.
But ArrayList are much easier to work with. The reason behind is, it is something like collection in Classic VB. You can ...