Working With FileSystem Object

We can read the content of a text file using FileSystemObject methods and properties. Below are the various methods and properties used to extract data from file.
1. Creating an instance of filesystem object

Before reading content from a file, we have to create instance of filesystemobject.

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

2. Opening an existing file to read

Set objTxtFile = objFSO.OpenTextFile(FilePath,iomode)

Iomode can have following values:

0 – For reading – opens the file for reading.

1 – For Writing – opens the file for writing, does overwrite the existing content in file.

8 – For Appending – opens the file for appending, new content is appended at the end of file.

3. ReadAll method

It stores all the content of a file in a variable as string.sContent = objTxtFile.ReadAll

4. ReadLine method

It allows a script to read individual lines in a text file.

sContent = objTxtFile.Readline.

To read through all lines, use a Do Loop that continues until the AtEndOfStream property is True.

Below code snippet shows how to read through each line.

i=0

Do Until objTxtFile.AtEndOfStream

sContent = objTxtFile.ReadLine

sDataArray(i) = objTxtFile.ReadLine

MsgBox sContent

i = i+1

Loop

Content of each line can be stored in an array also.

5. Read(chr)

 The Read method allows you to read only a specified number of characters.

Stores number of characters as defined in chr.

sContent = objTxtFile.Read(5)

6. Skip(chr)

This method skips the number of characters defined in chr from the text file

skip(5)

7. SkipLine

This method skips line of data from the text file.

skipline

8. AtEndOfLine Property

 Returns true if the file pointer is positioned immediately before the end-of-line marker in a TextStream file. Can be useful to find characters in a line or reading characters till end of line.

Do While file.AtEndOfLine <> True

9. Line property

gives the current line number of the textStream.

objTxtFile.line

10. Column Property

 Read-only property that returns the column number of the current character position in a TextStream file.

objTxtFile.Column     

11. OpenasTextStream Method

This method is used with getfile method to read from file.

Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

Set objTxtFile = objFSO.getFile(FilePath)

var objts = objTxtFile.OpenAsTextStream(iomode)