* VB-CODE (2)
Tip 162: Determining Whether a File Exists

December 5, 1995

Abstract
This article explains how to determine whether a file exists on a disk
drive in a Microsoft? Visual Basic? application.

Using the OpenFile Function
You can use the Microsoft? Windows? application programming interface (API)
OpenFile function in a Microsoft Visual Basic? application to determine
whether a file actually exists on a disk drive. To use this function, the
following Declare statement should be included in your project:

Private Declare Function OpenFile Lib "kernel32" (ByVal lpFileName As String,
   lpReOpenBuff As OFSTRUCT, ByVal wStyle As Long) As Long

The OpenFile function requires three arguments. The first argument is a
string containing the full path of the file to test. The second argument
is an OFSTRUCT structure, which contains information about the file after
the OpenFile function is called. The third argument is the action you want
the OpenFile function to take.

The third argument, wStyle, tells the OpenFile function the action that
the function is to perform. Because you want to find out whether a given
file exists, you call the OpenFile function with the wStyle argument set
to OF_EXIST. If the file does not exist, the OpenFile function will return
an error code of 2File Not Found.

When the OpenFile function is run, it writes information about the file to
the OFSTRUCT structure. Therefore, if an error occurs, you must retrieve
the actual error code from the OFSTRUCT structure itself. In the example
program below, you use the statement:

If OpenFileStructure.nErrCode = FILE_NOT_FOUND Then

After testing for the "File Not Found" error, you can indicate to the user
whether or not the file exists.

Example Program
This program shows how to determine whether a file already exists on the
disk drive.

 1. Create a new project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.
 2. Add the following Declare statement to the General Declarations
    section of Form1 (note that this Declare statement must be typed
    as a single line of text):

Private Declare Function OpenFile Lib "kernel32" (ByVal lpFileName As String,
   lpReOpenBuff As OFSTRUCT, ByVal wStyle As Long) As Long

 3. Add a Command Button control to Form1. Command1 is created by default.
 4. Add the following code to the Click event for Command1:

Private Sub Command1_Click()
    Dim TestFile As String
    Dim Ret As Integer
    TestFile = "c:\auto.bat"
    Ret = FileExists(TestFile)
    If Ret Then
        MsgBox "File already exists"
    Else
        MsgBox "File does not exist"
    End If
End Sub

 5. Create a new function called FileExists. Add the following code to
    this function:

Function FileExists(FileName As String) As Integer
    Dim RetCode As Integer
    Dim OpenFileStructure As OFSTRUCT
    Const OF_EXIST = &H4000
    Const FILE_NOT_FOUND = 2
    RetCode = OpenFile(FileName$, OpenFileStructure, OF_EXIST)
    If OpenFileStructure.nErrCode = FILE_NOT_FOUND Then
        FileExists = False
    Else
        FileExists = True
    End If
End Function

 6. From the Visual Basic Insert menu, select Module to create a new
    module. Module1.Bas is created by default.
 7. Add the following Type and Constant statements to Module1.Bas:

Public Const OFS_MAXPATHNAME = 128

Type OFSTRUCT
    cBytes As Byte
    fFixedDisk As Byte
    nErrCode As Integer
    Reserved1 As Integer
    Reserved2 As Integer
    szPathName(OFS_MAXPATHNAME) As Byte
End Type

Run the example program by pressing F5. Click the Command Button control.
A message box appears. If the file "C:\AUTO.BAT" exists on drive C, the
message box indicates that the target file does exist. If the file was
not found on the disk, however, the message box indicates that the file
does not exist.