Writing and reading datafiles

This isn't a specific coding question, but I am looking to write and read datafiles to disk. The data would be fairly simple, taken from and then read back into a worksheet, so a mixture of text and numbers. I've been scouring the net to see where to start but wonder if someone can point me in the right direction - an article, a post, a url - anything relevant. I came across Microsoft Scripting which seems straightforward but I think is out of date and probably only for text. That's it. Any suggestions would be useful.
Thanks.

Microsoft Scripting is fine, it's all out of date VB6 has been essentially dead for years

What do you mean "only for text", you're writing to a text file? So that should be fine, or were you also wanting to write binary objects?

Microsoft Scripting is fine, it's all out of date VB6 has been essentially dead for years

What do you mean "only for text", you're writing to a text file? So that should be fine, or were you also wanting to write binary objects?

Originally Posted by Kyle123

Microsoft Scripting is fine, it's all out of date VB6 has been essentially dead for years

What do you mean "only for text", you're writing to a text file? So that should be fine, or were you also wanting to write binary objects?

The data would be, as I said, a mixture of spreadsheet information, so you tell me, would it be better to write as a binary file or can it be done with a text file. I'm looking for help here, not a third degree grilling. Thanks, I think.

I'm hardly "grilling" you, just trying to understand what you're actually trying to do so we can actually offer some help; you didn't clarify, your question is unclear so drop the 'tude

I suspect that you just want a text file, they can hold numbers and strings - as to how you store it, you're probably better off using an already established format as there will be libraries to make reading and writing easier. CSV and XML spring to mind as possible options. Excel files >2003 are XML files (if you want to have a look, change an excel file extension form .xlsx to .zip, open it up and have a dig).

CSV is theoretically simpler and a flat structure, but surprisingly tricky to write, Excel will export a sheet to csv though so this may be a good option - you can also use ADO to read them which can make things a breeze if you're thinking of putting in a lot of info.

There isn't really a one size fits all format, that's why there are so many different formats and extension, it really depends on what you want to do with these files after they've been made and how your data is structured, does that help any?

I'll try Microsoft Scripting for writing and reading text files and see how I get on. This is the link:
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/lib...=vs.84%29.aspx
Not sure how the text is read into Excel but there should be a way.
Thank you.

I didn't want to leave this post unsolved, just in case anyone comes across it in desperate need. I used Microsoft Scripting system to do the deed. Use the link above to find out more. This has to be selected from the Tools-Reference list in VBA (not Excel). If you don't do this, the code will show error after error. Below is a simplified version of the code to write data from 15 columns to an arbitrary number of rows. If you have fixed numbers of rows and columns, this makes the task much easier:

Private Const ForReading = 1
Private Const ForWriting = 2
Private Const ForAppending = 8
Private Const fnamePath = "C:\path\name.txt" 'change this accordingly
Private Const NUMBER_OF_COLUMNS = 15 'up to you
Private Const ERROR_COUNT_ROWS = 20 'up to you
Sub writeFile()
    Dim fso, MyFile, FileName, TextLine
    Dim x, r As Long 'x counts columns, r counts rows
    Dim endloop As Integer: endloop = False
    Dim v As Variant: v = 0
    Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    FileName = fnamePath
    If (fso.FileExists(FileName)) Then
        'check that the user wants to overwrite
    End If
    Set MyFile = fso.OpenTextFile(FileName, ForWriting, True)
    Do While endloop = False And r < ERROR_COUNT_ROWS 'or have a fixed length
      For x = 1 To NUMBER_OF_COLUMNS
            v = Sheets("SheetName").Range("A1").Offset(r, x - 1)
            MyFile.WriteLine v
      Next x
      r = r + 1
      If v <> 0 Then endloop = True 'have some kind of end check here if not fixed length file
    Loop
    MyFile.Close
    MsgBox "File Saved."
End Sub
Sub readFile()
    Dim fso, MyFile, FileName, TextLine
    Dim x, r As Long
    Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    FileName = fnamePath
    If Not (fso.FileExists(FileName)) Then
        MsgBox "File not found."
        Exit Sub
    End If
    Set MyFile = fso.OpenTextFile(FileName, ForReading)
    r = 0
    Do While MyFile.AtEndOfStream <> True
      For x = 1 To NUMBER_OF_COLUMNS
        Sheets("SheetName").Range("A1").Offset(r, x - 1) = MyFile.ReadLine
      Next x
      r = r + 1
    Loop
    MyFile.Close
    MsgBox "File Read."
End Sub

I hope this helps someone, someplace, sometime...