Re: temporary filenames

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

From: Harald Staff (innocent_at_enron.invalid)
Date: 12/15/04 

Date: Wed, 15 Dec 2004 15:46:00 +0100

Hi Hal

This is the "proper" way to do it:

Option Explicit

Declare Function GetTempPath Lib "kernel32.dll" _
    Alias "GetTempPathA" (ByVal _
    nBufferLength As Long, _
    ByVal lpBuffer As String) As Long

Declare Function GetTempFileName Lib "kernel32.dll" _
    Alias "GetTempFileNameA" (ByVal _
    lpszPath As String, _
    ByVal lpPrefixString As String, _
    ByVal wUnique As Long, _
    ByVal lpTempFileName As String) As Long

Sub test()
' Generate a temporary file (path)\api????.TMP, where (path)
' is Windows's temporary file directory and ???? is a randomly assigned
unique value.
' Then display the name of the created file on the screen.
Dim temppath As String ' receives name of temporary file path
Dim tempfile As String ' receives name of temporary file
Dim slength As Long ' receives length of string returned for the path
Dim lastfour As Long ' receives hex value of the randomly assigned ????

' Get Windows's temporary file path
temppath = Space(255) ' initialize the buffer to receive the path
slength = GetTempPath(255, temppath) ' read the path name
temppath = Left(temppath, slength) ' extract data from the variable

' Get a uniquely assigned random file
tempfile = Space(255) ' initialize buffer to receive the filename
lastfour = GetTempFileName(temppath, "Yo!", 0, tempfile) ' get a unique
temporary file name
' (Note that the file is also created for you in this case.)
tempfile = Left(tempfile, InStr(tempfile, vbNullChar) - 1) ' extract data
from the variable
MsgBox tempfile
End Sub

I often do a shorter

Sub test2()
tempfile = "Yo!" & Format$(Now, "mmdd_hhmmss") & ".tmp"
MsgBox tempfile
End Sub

Laziness, nothing else.

HTH. Best wishes Harald

"Hal Tz" <HalTz@discussions.microsoft.com> skrev i melding
news:F392BB07-EF42-456B-9A2C-C2CC6C6A004E@microsoft.com...
> anyone know of a way of generating a temporary, unique, filename, as some
C
> runtime library functions do??
> --
> Hal

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