trying to store text file rows in VBA - excel

Question

Greetings, I'm hoping for help in figuring out how to store each row of a text file read into a VBA program as a string. I want to modify one of the strings and then put them all back together, but do not know how to read through a text file and store each row as a separate variable in an intelligent way. Thanks for any help you can provide!

Answer 1

If you don't want to add references, you could just go with straight vba code.
Take for instance the following file wordlist.txt:
realize
empty
theorize
line
socialize
here
analyze
The following code uses two methods to do as you described (one more common than the other):
Option Explicit
Sub main()
Dim sFileName As String
Dim sMergedLineArray() As String
Dim sTextToFind As String
Dim sReplacementText As String
Dim sOutputFile As String
Const MY_DELIMITER = "|"
sFileName = "C:\deleteme\wordlist.txt"
sMergedLineArray = ReadFileIntoArray(sFileName)
sTextToFind = "ze"
sReplacementText = "se"
'Loop through each value in the array and make a change if you need to
Dim x As Integer
For x = 0 To UBound(sMergedLineArray)
If InStr(1, sMergedLineArray(x), sTextToFind, vbTextCompare) > 0 Then
sMergedLineArray(x) = Replace(sMergedLineArray(x), sTextToFind, sReplacementText, 1, -1, vbTextCompare)
End If
Next x
sOutputFile = "C:\deleteme\UK_Version.txt"
If Not SpitFileOut(sOutputFile, sMergedLineArray) Then
MsgBox "It didn't work :("
End If
'OR...put it all together, make a mass change and split it back out (this seems unlikely, but throwing it in there anyway)
sTextToFind = "se"
sReplacementText = "ze"
Dim sBigString As String
Dim sNewArray As Variant
sBigString = Join(sMergedLineArray, MY_DELIMITER)
sBigString = Replace(sBigString, sTextToFind, sReplacementText, 1, -1, vbTextCompare)
sNewArray = Split(sBigString, MY_DELIMITER, -1, vbTextCompare)
sOutputFile = "C:\deleteme\American_Version.txt"
If Not SpitFileOut(sOutputFile, sNewArray) Then
MsgBox "It didn't work"
End If
MsgBox "Finished!"
End Sub
Function ReadFileIntoArray(sFileName As String) As String()
Dim sText As String
Dim sLocalArray() As String
Dim iFileNum As Integer
Dim iLineCount As Integer
iFileNum = FreeFile
Open sFileName For Input As #iFileNum
Do Until EOF(iFileNum)
Input #iFileNum, sText
ReDim Preserve sLocalArray(iLineCount)
sLocalArray(iLineCount) = sText
iLineCount = iLineCount + 1
Loop
Close #iFileNum
ReadFileIntoArray = sLocalArray
End Function
Function SpitFileOut(sFileName As String, sMyArray As Variant) As Boolean
Dim iFileNum As Integer
Dim iCounter As Integer
SpitFileOut = False
iFileNum = FreeFile
Open sFileName For Output As #iFileNum
For iCounter = 0 To UBound(sMyArray)
Print #iFileNum, sMyArray(iCounter)
Next
Close #iFileNum
SpitFileOut = True
End Function
If you run the main sub, you'll end up with two files:
UK_Version.txt: This is the result of the first method
American_Version.txt: This is the result of the second
There's lesson 1 of VBA, young Padawan; absorb it, learn and change your login name :P

Answer 2

Look into the FileSystemObject (ref: 1, 2, 3)
You have to go to <Tools/References> menu and include the Microsoft Scripting Runtime and create a global variable Global fso as New FileSystemObject. Now anywhere in your code do things like fso.OpenTextFile() which returns a TextStream. Each TextStream has methods loke ReadLine(), ReadAll(), SkipLine(), WriteLine(), etc ...
Here is a quick sample code.
Global fso as New FileSystemObject
Sub TEST()
Dim ts As TextStream
Set ts = fso.OpenTextFile("text_file.txt", ForReading, False)
Dim s As String
s = ts.ReadAll()
End Sub