VB Scripting help required

[slinky]

Folks,

I need to tidy up a file..

I need to remove all blank spaces!

The file is a list of computer names, there are three leading blank lines, and many blank characters after each entry, there is only one entry per line..

So, I would like to be able to remove any blank "characters" (spaces) from the file..

Is there an easy way of doing this?

TIA,

slinky
587racing.com

[Plotloss]

You cant update a file with vbScript.

You can delete it and recreate it but there is no edit as such to maintain file system security.

So it would be a case of iteratively reading each text line, trimming the spaces out and writing that line to a new file.

[Vee]

slinky said:

Folks, I need to tidy up a file.. I need to remove all blank spaces! The file is a list of computer names, there are three leading blank lines, and many blank characters after each entry, there is only one entry per line.. So, I would like to be able to remove any blank "characters" (spaces) from the file.. Is there an easy way of doing this? TIA, slinky 587racing.com

MS Excel, use the =TRIM() function.
This will remove spaces at either end but NOT in between.
If you have spaces in between it's a bit more complicated . .

Data text to columns the =CONCANTENATE()

[PetrolTed]

Plotloss said:

You cant update a file with vbScript. You can delete it and recreate it but there is no edit as such to maintain file system security. So it would be a case of iteratively reading each text line, trimming the spaces out and writing that line to a new file.

Not strictly true.

Pseudo code would be

- Read file into memory
- process line by line using trim or ltrim, rtrim
- then write file back out when you're doing using option to overwrite original.

[slinky]

To give you a little more information, the file is a flat text file with no formatting.. (the output from a "DOS" command)... in order to pipe this data into another script I need to remove the leading spaces and non required data..

I only require the first word on each line (computer name)...


here's an example of some of the text..

ABETTERTON Anne Betterton
ACCSRV1
ACOUPLAND
AJMONAGHAN

So I need to remove anything after the first block of characters, on each line...

TIA,

slinky

[Plotloss]

True, wasnt clear you can overwrite the entire object just not individual characters inside the object.

If you see what I mean.

[PetrolTed]

slinky said:

stuff

rtrim

[slinky]

picks up rtrim and run's off to google..

Cheers Ted!

slinky

[ATG]

If you were feeling sufficiently masochistic, I think you could do all of that with a DOS script. Given that you say the output is from a DOS command, you might end up with a more self-contained solution if you just put together a DOS batch file to do the whole thing.

[fazz81]

Think this would do what you need...

code said:

Dim strData() As String Dim strTemp As String Dim FF As Integer Dim intPos As Integer Dim intLoop As Integer Dim intCount As Integer FF = FreeFile Open "C:Data.txt" For Input As #FF intLoop = 0 While Not EOF(FF) Line Input #FF, strTemp If strTemp <> "" Then intPos = InStr(1, strTemp, " ", vbTextCompare) strTemp = Mid$(strTemp, 1, (intPos - 1)) ReDim Preserve strData(0 To intLoop) strData(intLoop) = strTemp intLoop = intLoop + 1 End If Wend Close #FF Open "C:Data.txt" For Output As #FF intLoop = UBound(strData()) For intCount = 0 To intLoop Write #FF, strData(intCount) Next intCount Close #FF

[pdV6]

You could reduce this:

fazz81 said:

intPos = InStr(1, strTemp, " ", vbTextCompare) strTemp = Mid$(strTemp, 1, (intPos - 1)) ReDim Preserve strData(0 To intLoop) strData(intLoop) = strTemp intLoop = intLoop + 1

to:

simpler verison said:

strData = Replace(strTemp, " ", "")

[tycho]

Can you import it into Excel? The computer names should be in the first column. Delete the rest and save it as plain text.

[Fer]

awk '{print $1}'

(oops, sorry, wrong OS!)

[fazz81]

pdV6 said:

strData = Replace(strTemp, " ", "")

this would only remove spaces, but slinky only wants the first word on each line.

[ATG]

Fer said:

awk '{print $1}' (oops, sorry, wrong OS!)

Whose got the wrong OS? Him or you?

[dilbert]

If you're piping things about, can't you use a Windows port of GREP?

[slinky]

Tis done..

coding bloke in the office said:

Const ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2 Dim fso,txtInputFile, txtOutPutFile strInputFileName = "infile.txt" strOutPutFileName = "PCRerun.txt" Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set txtInputFile = fso.OpenTextFile(strInputFileName) Set txtOutPutFile = fso.createTextFile(strOutPutFileName) Do While txtInputFile.AtEndOfStream <> True txtReadLine = trim(txtInputFile.Readline) if left(txtReadline, 2) = "\" then myPos = Instr(1, txtReadLine, chr(32)) if myPos <> 0 then txtReadLine = Left(txtReadLine, myPos-1) end if txtOutPutFile.WriteLine(txtReadLine) end if Loop txtInputFile.Close txtOutPutFile.Close

Cheers for all of your input guys!

slinky