Dir function oddity

[GPO]

Access 2000
I am a sometime VBA dabbler trying to help a complete non-
programmer over the phone with a problem that does not
make sense to me (I can see we're off to a great start).
The following snippet is supposed to take a path and file:
(eg PathAndSelectedFile = "C:\Data\XXXXXXXa.txt")
and yeild a filename:
(eg FileToLoad = "XXXXXXXa.txt").

FileToLoad = _
Dir(Left(PathAndSelectedFile, _
Len(PathAndSelectedFile) - 5) & "?.txt", _
vbNormal)

It ALWAYS works properly on my pcs (Win 98, Win 2000, Win
XP), but my friend is adamant that it is yeilding the full
path and file (eg "C:\Data\XXXXXXXa.txt"), which is not
what we want.
Because I can't replicate it, I'm becoming a little
skeptical, but I would be grateful if someone could
confirm that this is a normal behaviour of Dir() and what
we can do to guarantee that we will only get the file and
not the path.

(Incidentally the "?.txt" is a wild card to find any file
named the same as the file in the PathAndSelectedFile
variable except for the fifth last char)

Regards

GPO

 

[TC]

I don't have Access here to check, but I am fairly sure that Dir() does not
return the path.

If your friend is a "complete non-programmer", he is probably just mistaken
about the value returned. How is he checking that value? Has he put a msgbox
immediately after the FileToLoad=.. statement? My bet is: no. He is getting
the value from somewhere else - so it does not necessarily reflect what is
returned by the statement in question.

HTH,
TC

 

[GPO]

I'm doing the message box trick and getting her to write
down what it brings up. I'll let you know what we find.

Many thanks

GPO

 

[Naresh Nichani MVP]

Hi:

Dir just returns the file name (no path) if file exists.

For example in debug window type --

?Dir("C:\autoexec.bat")
you will get "autoexec.bat" if it exists.

Regards,

Naresh Nichani
Microsoft Access MVP