Modifying Melba's "recursive" file/folder search

[Melba23]

Spiff59,

Got you now - thanks.

Looking into your SREs to see how you build up the masks - why must the damned things be so difficult?

M23

[Spiff59]

Still does screwy things with multiple parameters in the list:

$IncludeList = "A*;$*.*" returns "~$Normal.dot"

$IncludeList = "A*;$.*" returns "$winnt$.inf"

[Melba23]

Spiff59,

I just use simple alphanumerics as filenames - why do people have to make it so complicated by using all these other characters?

This seems to fix it:

$s##clude_List_Mask = "(?i)^(" & StringReplace(StringReplace(StringRegExpReplace($s##clude_List, "(\^|\$|\.)", "\\$1"), "*", ".*"), "?", ".") & ")\z" ; Convert to SRE pattern

Oh how I love SREs!

M23

P.S. Actually, despite my moaning, I am very grateful for the input - always something to improve in any code (especially mine!).

[Spiff59]

Spiff59,

I just use simple alphanumerics as filenames - why do people have to make it so complicated by using all these other characters?

This seems to fix it:

$s##clude_List_Mask = "(?i)^(" & StringReplace(StringReplace(StringRegExpReplace($s##clude_List, "(\^|\$|\.)", "\\$1"), "*", ".*"), "?", ".") & ")\z" ; Convert to SRE pattern

Oh how I love SREs!

M23

P.S. Actually, despite my moaning, I am very grateful for the input - always something to improve in any code (especially mine!).

I still like the one from a year ago It is very very similar, and has the ExcludeFolder parameter which can be useful (as in darkjohn20's last post) It also seems to be considerably faster in most cases. Edited June 22, 2010 by Spiff59

[Melba23]

darkjohn20,

My final (at least for the moment! ) suggestion:

$s##clude_List_Mask = "(?i)^(" & StringReplace(StringReplace(StringRegExpReplace($s##clude_List, "(\^|\$|\.)", "\\$1"), "?", "."), "*", ".*?") & ")\z" ; Convert to SRE pattern

This gives me the same results as Spiff59's SREs - so it must be pretty good!

If you are interested, the 2 patterns come out like this (using "*.exe;*.dll*" as a filter):

Spiff59: (?i)\A(?!.*?[.]exe$|.*?[.]dll.*?$)
Melba23: (?i)^(.*?\.exe|.*?\.dll.*?)\z

They are basically identical:

(?i) - case insensitive

\A or ^ - start at beginning of string

(something|something_else) - use either|or (if you have multiple filters)

.*?[.]exe or .*?\.exe - smallest match of any number of characters followed by .exe

.*?[.]dll.*? or .*?\.dll.*? - smallest match of any number of characters followed by .dll followed by smallest match of any number of characters

$ or \z - end of string (either at end of each option or at the end of the option ()

Where we differ is the use of ?! (a zero-width negative lookahead) at the start of the () section - and there I cannot help because, although I know what it is, I have no idea why it is there!

; -----

Anyway, I seem to have been ignoring your original request since we got involved in the SRE discussions - my apologies. The dratted things have a sort of morbid fascination which draws you in ever further.....

Are you happy with the code now or are there things we could improve? Or would you prefer to use Spiff59's code instead? Please let me know.

M23