FileFind.Get_recurse()

[stanlyn]

Hi,

Several questions about "FileFind.Get_recurse()"...

Using the Interactive window, I typed in
filefind.get_recurse("H:\Perry", "*.tif", FILE_FIND_NORMAL+FILE_FIND_NOT_DIRECTORY, "P|N")
#1. what is the return value,
#2. where is it stored,
#3. how is it accessed,
#4. is filefind an object here,
#5. how do I interrupt the process if it takes too long as mine took 10+ minutes and Alpha was "Not Responding",
#6. how do I see something like a progress bar here,
#7. can I hook into it somehow to do other things, like transformation or maybe some logic,
#8. after selecting "filefind.get_recurse" in the interactive window and pressing F1 (help) does help reports in a dialog titled "Notice" that "Topic not found: 'filefound.get_recurse()' when in fact there is an entry in the help file,
#9. Why is alpha's help showing strange (hi ascii) characters, (see image below)

Thanks,
Stanley

[GGandhi]

Re: FileFind.Get_recurse()

#1> the return value is a character string
the command is

some_fileName = filefind.get_recurse("H:\Perry", "*.tif", FILE_FIND_NORMAL+FILE_FIND_NOT_DIRECTORY, "P|N" + crlf() )

the result will be in the "some_fileName" you can print it, at least as far as I know.
I do not know why it took so long in mine it was instantaneous.

[stanlyn]

Re: FileFind.Get_recurse()

Hi gGandhi,

Is the some_file a regular os file on the file system? If so, where, and/or can I give it a full path as in "C:\some_file.txt"?

Could it be that mine was gathering 800,000 files? That is why I need a progress bar and/or hook into it so to advise the user...

Thanks,
Stanley

[Al Buchholz]

Re: FileFind.Get_recurse()

Could it be that mine was gathering 800,000 files?

that's a lot of files in one directory.

[stanlyn]

Re: FileFind.Get_recurse()

Hi Al,

Those files are not in a single directory. The Perry folder only has 12 folders and each one of those folders can have up to about 300 folders and each one of those has no more than 800 files/images.

Stanley

[Al Buchholz]

Re: FileFind.Get_recurse()

Hi Al,

Those files are not in a single directory. The Perry folder only has 12 folders and each one of those folders can have up to about 300 folders and each one of those has no more than 800 files/images.

Stanley

I don't think that matters. You are loading 800,000 records into a list. And reading a lot via the windows file system.

What is the alternative?

[stanlyn]

Re: FileFind.Get_recurse()

Yes, if they are all going to a list, variable or object, then it wouldn't take much to overwhelm it.

So, where is the returned list located and how does one access it?

Is the help system broken as mentioned in #8 and 9 above?

All I'm trying to do is find all the .tif files from a starting path and recurse all sub dirs then add their path and filename to a table.

Stanley

[stanlyn]

Re: FileFind.Get_recurse()

Is there a limit on the size of the list returned? I entered ?some_filename in the IW and I only get maybe 50 or so entries and it quit in the middle of an entry...

Doing a ?len(some_filename) returns 3,445,891...

Stanley

[Al Buchholz]

Re: FileFind.Get_recurse()

Is there a limit on the size of the list returned? I entered ?some_filename in the IW and I only get maybe 50 or so entries and it quit in the middle of an entry...

Doing a ?len(some_filename) returns 3,445,891...

Stanley

Sounds like your file names and/or paths are really long.

You may need to loop to find each directory and then read only the files within that directory and write to your table.

ie divide and conquer.

on the other points did you type file.find or filefound?

as far as high end characters I've seen that in a few cases and thought that some one edited that page with a MAC.

[Stan Mathews]

Re: FileFind.Get_recurse()

Is there a limit on the size of the list returned?

There is a limit on the number of characters that can be displayed in the IW. (May have been what Al was saying.)

[Stan Mathews]

Re: FileFind.Get_recurse()

I'm going back to your original question(s).

#1. what is the return value,
#2. where is it stored,
#3. how is it accessed,
#4. is filefind an object here,
#5. how do I interrupt the process if it takes too long as mine took 10+ minutes and Alpha was "Not Responding",
#6. how do I see something like a progress bar here,
#7. can I hook into it somehow to do other things, like transformation or maybe some logic,

1. If the return value is short enough, it is a character string crlf() delimited, longer than that, a blob.
2. Nowhere unless you print it to the IW or assign it to a variable, save it to a file (save_to_file()).
3. ? filefind.get_recurse("H:\Perry", "*.tif", FILE_FIND_NORMAL+FILE_FIND_NOT_DIRECTORY, "P|N"), in the IW will display as much as the IW will hold.
4. Yes filefind is an object (internal Alpha) and .get_recurse() is a method of that object.
5. Terminate Alpha.
6. It would take just as long to get the number of files to process and use that number in a progress bar as it does to just process them.
7. Once the list is captured to a variable you can process the list with any of the list processing functions such as *for_each(), line_count, etc.

[Al Buchholz]

Re: FileFind.Get_recurse()

There is a limit on the number of characters that can be displayed in the IW. (May have been what Al was saying.)

No I was saying that too much main memory is used if the list is too long since the list is held in memory.

So process multiple shorter lists instead of one long list. ie divide and conquer.