"Galen Somerville" <galen@community.nospam> wrote in message
news:e16MVtVZGHA.508@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> And yet another VB6 to VB2005 problem. All helpful suggestions
> appreciated.
>
> As you can see in the code below, my structures use fixed length strings
> and known array sizes. Consequently I can save to files as a large byte
> array.
>
> This is a series of Lectures where there is a capacity for 8 instructors
> with up to 8 lectures each. So a parameters file made from glctInstTable
> is 2,232 bytes.
>
> The 64 lectures, for the above, each consist of 100 lecture steps each.
> This creates a 211,200 byte lecture file.
>
> At the start of the program all parameters are read in. Only a specific
> lecture is read in when required, as shown in last item below.
>
> During a program run, if changes are made, they can be written back to the
> files on the fly.
>
> Now the problem. I can initialize the array sizes when the program first
> calls for reading in the lectures etc. But I do not want to initialize as
> fixed length strings. But with variable length strings I can't write a
> simple byte array to a file.
>
> There would be no way to use simple math to find a lecture position in
> such a file. I would like to avoid using a database approach.
>
> I could pad all strings to a fixed size when writing the file and then
> trim (unpad) when reading in the file. This would, of course, be a pain in
> the neck.
>
> HELP !!!
>
> GalenS
>
>
> TYPE DECLARATIONS
> '   Lecture structures
> Private Type ulctLectStruc
>    FilNam As String * 25
>    BPMRate As Integer
>    PgmTyp As Byte
>    VolLvl(4) As Byte
> End Type
> Public glctLecture(99) As ulctLectStruc
>
> Private Type ulctInstrStruc
>    InstName As String * 15
>    Password As String * 8
>    LectName(7) As String * 30
>    Quiz(7) As Integer
> End Type
> Public glctInstTable(7) As ulctInstrStruc
>
> Public Type stcLectures
>    InstSelect As Boolean    'Instructor selected
>    LectSelect As Boolean    'Lecture selected
>    InstNum As Integer     'Current instructor #
>    LectNum As Integer     'Current lecture #
>    QuizNum As Integer     'Current quiz #
>    LectEdit As Boolean      'force edit
>    Passwd As Boolean      'password received
>    Step As Integer      'Current active step
>    BPM As Integer   'current lect step BPM
>    Active As Boolean    'Lecture is in use
>    Advance As Boolean       'Advance or backup direction
>    PgmType As Byte     '0=Film  6=Resp  11=Vet
> End Type
> Public gLect As stcLectures
>
> OPENING THE LECTURE AND PARAMETER FILES
>    Temp1 = Len(glctLecture(0)) * 100
>    Temp2 = Len(glctInstTable(0))
>    sFile = clsRes.LoadResStgA(401)    'lct file
>    strCurrFile = gstrPgmPath & sFile
>    On Error GoTo ErrorHandler  ' Enable error-handling routine.
>    lctFile = FreeFile
>    Open strCurrFile For Random Access Read Write As #lctFile Len = Temp1
> ' Open file for input.
>    sFile = clsRes.LoadResStgA(400)    'par file
>    strCurrFile = gstrPgmPath & sFile
>    parFile = FreeFile
>    Open strCurrFile For Random Access Read Write As #parFile Len = Temp2
> ' Open file for input.
>
>
> READING THE PASSWORD PROTECTED PARAMETERS FILE INTO STRUCTURES
>    On Error GoTo ErrorHandler  ' Enable error-handling routine.
>    For Index = 0 To 7 Step 1
>        Get #parFile, Index + 1, glctInstTable(Index)
>        strTemp = glctInstTable(Index).Password
>        For Inner = 1 To 8 Step 1
>            intTemp = Asc(Mid$(strTemp, Inner, 1)) Xor bytCode(Inner - 1)
>            Mid$(strTemp, Inner, 1) = Chr$(intTemp)
>        Next Inner
>        glctInstTable(Index).Password = strTemp
>    Next Index
>
>
> READING IN THE DESIRED LECTURE (OUT OF 64) TO LECTURE STRUCTURE OF 100
> STEPS
>    On Error GoTo ErrorHandler  ' Enable error-handling routine.
>    LectFilePosition = (gLect.InstNum * 8) + gLect.LectNum + 1
>    Get #lctFile, LectFilePosition, glctLecture
>
>