I've got a networked directory that contains all of my company's artwork files. We make custom graphics. What often happens is that a previous client will contact one of my sales reps and ask "Do you have my art from the last job I did with you?" The sales reps then ask my graphic artist to 'check the files' and see if we have the artwork. The files are usually placed in a subdirectory that follows a specific naming convention, the job number and then the name of the company or client.

My sales reps are good with clients -- not so good with computers! If I gave them direct access to the directory itself they would hardly have the capability of performing a comprehensive search, and would likely delete, move or disorder the files. So I'm trying to find some way of indexing everything within a certain directory.

But I'm having trouble with handling subdirectories and their contents. I'm toying around with a sample db using the @LocalListDirectory command, but it only gives me a straight down listing of just the one directory, it doesn't handle subdirectories. I wrote the following code to check the returned string array for subdirectories, and can get two strings -- one with just files, and another with only subdirectories.

var n as Int		 // Looping variable.
var vRawString as String    // The first result.
var vSubDirs as String	  // When complete, will contain string arry of subdirectories.
var vFilesOnly as String    // When complete, will contain only files.

IF DirectoryPath <> ""
{
    IF @DirectoryExists(DirectoryPath) = 1
    {
	  WriteLn("The directory: " + DirectoryPath + " exists!")
	  vRawString = @LocalListDirectory(DirectoryPath)
	  vRawString = @UniqueStringArray(vRawString)
	  WriteLn("There were " + @CountStringArray(vRawString) + "items found.")
	  FOR n = 1 to @CountStringArray(vRawString)
		IF @DirectoryExists(DirectoryPath + "\" + @AccessStringArray(vRawString, n) + "\") = "yes"
		{
		    vSubDirs = @AppendStringArray(vSubDirs, DirectoryPath + "\" + @AccessStringArray(vRawString, n) + "\")
		}
		ELSE // This is a file, not a sub-directory.
		{
		    vFilesOnly = @AppendStringArray(vFilesOnly, @AccessStringArray(vRawString, n))
		}
	  NEXT
	  WriteLn("vFilesOnly = " + vFilesOnly)
	  WriteLn("vSubDirs = " + vSubDirs)
	  DirectoryContents = vFilesOnly
    }
    ELSE Clear(DirectoryContents)
}
ELSE @MsgBox("You must specify a directory to scan.", "", "") 

It works, but I'm unsure how to make Sesame continue to work its way downwards through the file structure so that when it's done I'll have a single string array containing just the file names in all the subdirectories. With that string I could then allow sales reps to check the string for company and client names, and it would give them some sense of whether we have the artwork. They would still have to rely on someone else to get the file, but they would at least have some way of knowing.

Is there some simpler way of doing this that I'm missing? I thought maybe a While loop could do it, but I've always steered clear of them!

Yes, that works! Added "> index.txt" to the end of that command line and it works. Thanks Erica!

Hammer wrote on Sep 23^rd, 2010 at 4:34pm:


The following programming makes Sesame crash.

var vResult as String

vResult = @RedirectProcess("DIR", "")

If vResult <> "" Then WriteLn("Success.")
 

I can then unlock the design file. I created a new application with that programming in it (maybe it's an error related to the Preview function?) but got the same error.

Hammer wrote on Sep 24^th, 2010 at 4:51pm:

I'm using Windows XP SP2.

Edit: also using Sesame 2.5.2

Acebanner wrote on Sep 24^th, 2010 at 6:10pm:

Me too, and I'm not crashing. I'll see if Support can replicate this.

Maybe there is some piece of security software "protecting" standard output on your system. Is there any way that you can try this on a different computer?

Hello Acebanner,

Can you send to support@lantica.com your DSR and DDT files so that I can replicate this here? I can't get it to happen with just sample files.

-Ray

Found the problem and found why it happens there and not here. The problem is in the amount of information that is being "piped" through the @RedirectProcess command. When I use it in a smaller directory (or on Linux) it is fine. When I used it in a larger directory, it crashed here as well. Simply a "buffer overrun" problem. It will be fixed in the next release.

In the meantime, you can probably use the other code you already wrote. You have to be "recursive". So, when the routine encounters a directory, it calls itself with the accumulated directory path. That way it can descend down into sub-directories, building paths as it goes. Or, for now, you could use @Shell and use the redirect operator on the command line to write to a file, and then read that file.