VB Forum / General / October 2004

No wonder you're getting confused if you're using the FSO for this. Stick to
VB's native methods. Open the file, read your variables, close the file.
That really is all there is to it.

Check Help on the Open and Input methods.

I agree with Jezebel.  I would junk the use of the FileSystemObject.
FSO is seductive because it's easy to use and you can do a lot with
very few lines of code.  However, it can easily come back to bite you
in the butt because there are so many different versions of FSO from
operating system to operating system.  

Also, when you declare your variables like "Dim fso, MyFile" without
specifying a data type, VB automatically makes them variants.
Variants are the most resource hungry of any data type and can also
come back to bite you in the butt.  

A lot of my progs save and retrieve variables to and from text files
all the time.  In your case I would just save those two lines as two
string variables and retrieve them as such later when you need them.
Here are two subs of mine that I use and reuse for storing variables.
They store many more than the two strings that you need to use and
store some other datatypes, but you could pare them down to easily
make them store and retrieve the two strings that you're using.  When
you're using the "SaveVariables" sub, the first string you feed it is
used to name the file.  Then if you feed the RetrieveVariables sub the
same string, it opens the same file to grab the saved data.  For
example, if you feed SaveVariables "allthestuff", it saves it in a
file named "allthestuff.dat".  

I'm also including a stock Function that one of the subs relies on.  I
hope this is helpful.  

'---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
' Procedure : SaveVariables
' Purpose   : Save variables to a file for later retrieval.
'           : Sub can be used over and over called by many different
subs.
'           : Use in conjunction with the "RetrieveVariables" Sub.
'---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'
Public Sub SaveVariables(ByVal strFileName As String, _
                       ByVal str1stString As String, ByVal
str2ndString As String, _
                       ByVal str3rdString As String, ByVal
str4thString As String, _
                       ByVal str5thString As String, ByVal int1stInt
As Integer, _
                       ByVal int2ndInt As Integer, ByVal int3rdInt As
Integer, _
                       ByVal bln1stBoo As Boolean, ByVal bln2ndBoo As
Boolean, _
                       ByVal bln3rdBoo As Boolean)
Dim intFF As Integer

' kill previous hold file if it exists
If FileExists(App.Path & "\" & strFileName & ".dat") Then
   Kill App.Path & "\" & strFileName & ".dat"
End If

intFF = FreeFile
Open App.Path & "\" & strFileName & ".dat" For Output As #intFF
   Write #intFF, str1stString, str2ndString, str3rdString,
str4thString, str5thString, _
   int1stInt, int2ndInt, int3rdInt, bln1stBoo, bln2ndBoo, bln3rdBoo
   Close #intFF
End Sub

'---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
' Procedure : RetrieveVariables
' Purpose   : Retrieve variables that have been saved to sequential
access file.
'           : Use in conjunction with the "SaveVariables" Sub.
'---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'
Public Sub RetrieveVariables(ByRef strFileName As String, _
                       ByRef str1stString As String, ByRef
str2ndString As String, _
                       ByRef str3rdString As String, ByRef
str4thString As String, _
                       ByRef str5thString As String, ByRef int1stInt
As Integer, _
                       ByRef int2ndInt As Integer, ByRef int3rdInt As
Integer, _
                       ByRef bln1stBoo As Boolean, ByRef bln2ndBoo As
Boolean, _
                       ByRef bln3rdBoo As Boolean)
Dim intFF As Integer

intFF = FreeFile

Open App.Path & "\" & strFileName & ".dat" For Input As intFF

Do While Not EOF(intFF)
   Input #intFF, str1stString, str2ndString, str3rdString,
str4thString, str5thString, _
   int1stInt, int2ndInt, int3rdInt, bln1stBoo, bln2ndBoo, bln3rdBoo
Loop

Close #intFF

End Sub

Public Function FileExists(strCheckEe As String) As Boolean
Dim strCheck_File As String
   strCheck_File = Dir(strCheckEe)
   If Len(strCheck_File) > 0 Then
       FileExists = True
   Else
       FileExists = False
   End If
End Function