Listing a Folder's contents

[paulseawind_gmail_co]

I am looking for but cannot find a function that will return the contents of a folder (i.e. the filenames that are in the folder) back to my NATIVE COBOL program

I have looked through the File Handling Library Routines and none of those seem appropriate

The MS-DOS DIR command does this - is there a VC equivalent to the old DIR command?

I have MF VC P/Edit 2.2 with V/Studio 2012 on Windows 8.1

[lanter-edv_ch]

Why don't you use Managed Cobol? The .Net Framework function System.IO.Directory.GetFiles gives you what you want.

Freundliche Gürsse

Werner Lanter

[paulseawind_gmail_co]

Thanks for the info

I do not use .Net stuff

Never have been trained for that

I have a mainframe Batch/CICS/CA-DATACOM/Masterpiece background and I find the MF VC NATIVE COBOL to be almost the same as the mainframe COBOL (in some ways it's better)

I can see this product has a huge number of options and it's very capable but I am not working so I don't need to use those things

But I will have a dabble around and if it's 'easy' to do I can try it

[Chris Glazier]

You can use the routines CBL_DIR_SCAN_START, CBL_DIR_SCAN_READ and CBL_DIR_SCAN_END to read through a directory listing of files.

There is an example under CBL_DIR_SCAN_READ in the docs.

[paulseawind_gmail_co · Accepted solution]

Thanks Chris

I found community.microfocus.com/.../10363.aspx

[paulseawind_gmail_co]

Additional info

I got it going this morning and it works really well

Superfast actually

I started with Jerry's code from community.microfocus.com/.../10363.aspx

And I re-wrote it to suit my style e.g. I use MOVE instead of SET - MOVE is faster I think

And I used Chris's input and I also read KarlRainer's comments and made my own version from those 3 inputs

I delete files, not copy them, at the moment

It will delete 121 small files, one at a time, in way less than one second

I read the pre-determined folder and then decide whether to issue a DELETE or not based on the actual filename's prefix

It doesn't put the deleted files in the Recycle Bin yet (and I do want that feature) so I will add a step to COPY into there just before the DELETE

I didn't code the CBL_DIR_SCAN_END step and it doesn't matter in my case because I'm only doing one scan

Thanks for the help with this

[tuciusma]

This sample return folder content: documentation.microfocus.com/.../HRCLRHCALL7I.html

Is there a way to get folder and sub-folders content by using CBL_DIR_SCAN_START, CBL_DIR_SCAN_READ or any other way? I need to get a file list in all sub-folders. I am using ED 2.2 Micro Focus dialect and running ES 2.2.

[Chris Glazier]

You should be able to do this simply by changing the flag used in the CBL_DIR_SCAN_START from:

compute search-attributes =                  

  find-file +                  

  find-directory +                  

  find-neither.        

to

compute search-attributes =                  

  find-directory

or you could check the flag on the CBL_DIR_SCAN_READ for the return value to check if it is a folder.

[tuciusma]

Hi Chris,

i want to list files in subfolders not only subfolders. Here is mu code from sample:

      copy "cblproto.cpy".

      identification division.

      program-id. SCANDIR.

      environment division.

      configuration section.

      data division.

      working-storage section.

      01  .

          05 os-info          cblt-os-info-params.

     * Variables for CBL_DIR_SCAN_BEGIN      

     * Some used by other CBL_DIR_SCAN_ routines.      

     * The handle.

      01 dir-handle     pointer.      

     * The pattern.  I chose a null terminator instead of      

     * specified length.      

      01 dir-name-pattern.          

          10 dir-name-pattern-length     cblt-x2-comp5 value zero.

          10 dir-name-pattern-text       pic x(2048).      

     * The terminator.      

      01 pattern-terminator         pic x value low-values.      

     * Search attributes.      

      01 search-attributes     cblt-x4-comp5 value zero.          

          78 find-file         value 1.          

          78 find-directory    value 2.          

          78 find-neither      value 4.      

     * Flags      

      01 dirflags             cblt-os-flags.          

          78 escape-seq       value 1.          

          78 wildcards        value 2.      

      01 search-status        pic xx   comp-5.      

     * Variables for CBL_DIR_SCAN_READ      

     * The entry.      

      01 entry-data.          

          10 entry-data-attribute cblt-x4-comp5.          

          10 entry-data-date-stamp.              

              20 stamp-year   cblt-x4-comp5.

              20 stamp-month  cblt-x2-comp5.          

              20 stamp-day    cblt-x2-comp5.              

              20 stamp-hour   cblt-x2-comp5.              

              20 stamp-minute cblt-x2-comp5.              

              20 stamp-sec    cblt-x2-comp5.              

              20 stamp-msec   cblt-x2-comp5.              

              20 stamp-dst    cblt-x1-comp5.              

              20 stamp-size   cblt-x8-comp5.          

          10 entry-data-name.              

              20 name-length  cblt-x2-comp5 value 50.              

              20 name-text    pic x(50).      

     * Variables for CBL_DIR_SCAN_END      

     * No additional data items required.      

     * Command line argument data area      

      01 arg-pos              pic 9 value 1.      

      01 arg-text             pic x(2048) value spaces.      

     * Variables to make program Unix/Windows universal      

      01 default-path pic x(70).          

          78 win-path  value 'D:\Tutorials\JCL'.

          78 unix-path value '/var'.      

     * Parameter block for CBL_GET_OS_INFO, ignoring all but OS type      

      01 osinfo.          

          10 osinfo-length pic x(2) comp-x value 23.          

          10 os-type pic x comp-x.          

          10 osinfo-junk pic x(25).      

     * OTHER VARIABLES      

      01 attrib-work          pic x    comp-5.      

      01 attrib-text          pic x(10).      

      01 nonblank-len         pic 9(9).      

      01 terminator-position  pic 9(9).      

      01 return-val           cblt-rtncode.                

      procedure division.

     * call 'CBL_GET_OS_INFO' using os-info

     * display cblte-osi-os-type      upon console                    

     ** Find out whether this is Unix or Windows,      

     ** and set default path appropriately.          

      call 'CBL_GET_OS_INFO' using osinfo    

                      returning return-val.          

      if os-type = 128 or os-type = 129      

     ** Unix

      move unix-path to default-path            

          else      

     ** Windows, OS/2, or DOS.              

      move win-path to default-path.      

     ** Check for directory specification on command line.          

      display arg-pos upon argument-number.          

      accept arg-text from argument-value.          

          if arg-text = spaces              

               move default-path to dir-name-pattern-text              

          else              

              move arg-text to dir-name-pattern-text.      

     ** Find the nonblank length and append string terminator.          

      perform varying nonblank-len              

          from function length(dir-name-pattern-text)              

              by -1 until                  

          dir-name-pattern-text(nonblank-len:1) <> space

           or                  

          nonblank-len = 1.

          add 1 to nonblank-len giving terminator-position.          

      move pattern-terminator              

        to dir-name-pattern-text(terminator-position:1).      

     ** Set desired search attributes by name.          

      compute search-attributes =                  

     *    find-file +                  

          find-directory                    

     *    find-neither.          

      move zero to dirflags.      

     ** Start the scan -- similar to opening a file.          

      call 'CBL_DIR_SCAN_START' using                            

                         dir-handle                            

                         dir-name-pattern                            

                         search-attributes                            

                         dirflags                                      

                               returning                            

                         search-status.      

     ** Read to end, similar to reading a file.          

      perform walk-dir thru walk-dir-exit until                  

                          search-status <> zero.      

     ** At end or upon error, end the scan, similar to closing a file.

      call 'CBL_DIR_SCAN_END' using

                       dir-handle

                           returning

                       search-status.      

     ** End the program.

      display 'That''s all!' upon console.

      goback.      

      walk-dir.      

     ** Initialize name-text; function does not right-pad to length.

          move spaces to name-text.      

     ** Do the read.          

      call 'CBL_DIR_SCAN_READ' using                            

                        dir-handle                            

                        entry-data                                    

                             returning                            

                        search-status.          

      if search-status <> zero exit paragraph.      

     ** Remove all but the two rightmost bits of result.          

      move function MOD(entry-data-attribute, 3) to attrib-work.      

     ** Format result display.          

      evaluate attrib-work              

          when 1 move 'File' to attrib-text              

          when 2 move 'Directory' to attrib-text              

          when other move '???' to attrib-text.              

      display 'Next entry is: '                      

          attrib-text ' ' name-text(1:name-length) upon console.

       display  name-text upon console.  

      walk-dir-exit.

          EXIT.

      end program SCANDIR.

[Chris Glazier]

If you wish to find both folders and files then you should set flags to 3:

   find-file + find-directory                    

[tuciusma]

I am able to list files and folders, i not able to list files and folders recursively. Fo example i have C:\dir_A\dir_B\file_X and i set dir-name-pattern to C:\dir_A  i want to get dir_B and file_X, but since file_X is in subfolder dir_B, i only get dir_B and file_X is invisible.  

In Powershell it would be Get-ChildItem -Path C:\dir_A –Recurse

[Chris Glazier]

That you cannot do using these calls. You would have to do one folder level at a time and then for each subfolder you would have to do another call to cbl_dir_scan_start and read thru to end, etc. etc in order to list its set of files.