How to Read a Folder & Display Content As Links With Visual Basic
- 1). Create the necessary variables. These variables are used to call the "Directory" class and loop through each file or folder to create the link on the form. Below is the code to create file variables:
Dim directory As Directory
Dim files As String()
Dim file As String
Note the "files" and "file" definitions. The "files" variable is an array of all the files in the directory. The "file" variable is used to contain one file string. - 2). Get a list of files and save it to the "files" array. An internal Visual Basic function called "GetFiles()" is used to create the list. The following code retrieves all the folders and files withing the "c:\myFolder" directory:
files = directory.GetFiles("C:\myFolder", "*")
The "*" directs the compiler to retrieve all files. You can also specify file names for retrieval. - 3). Loop through each file in the array and print it to a link label. The link label creates an underlined text area that users click to open the file. The following code prints each file to the user's form:
For Each file In files
Dim link As New LinkLabel()
link.Text = file
Me.Controls.Add(link)
Loop - 4). Save the new coding changes and press the F5 key. The F5 key compiles and runs your code in the debugger, so you can verify its function and syntax in the Visual Basic editor.