FileExists == NOT

I cannot seem to get FileExists to work properly.

I want to check to see if any file/s appear in the directory:

f:\edi\inbound

My statement is

dim lReturn, boolean

FileExists "f:\edi\inbound\*.*", lReturn

In ALL cases, lReturn returns TRUE.

The directory i am checking is completely free of subdirectories, although I assume this should not matter.

Any suggestions?

Mark Richards
Boston

Mark:

We'll look close on your comment in a short time.
First we'll check it in our enviroment.

It seems to me that this is arguably a problem, but rather an inconvenience.
Say, if you do a file search with a wildcard criteria reading:
filename.*
- you expect to get the list of all files with NO extension along with ANY extension... So * can represent NULL. This may result in an unexpected result you get with FileExists.

: I cannot seem to get FileExists to work properly.

: I want to check to see if any file/s appear in the directory: f:\edi\inbound

: My statement is

: dim lReturn, boolean

: FileExists "f:\edi\inbound\*.*", lReturn

: In ALL cases, lReturn returns TRUE.

: The directory i am checking is completely free of subdirectories, although I
: assume this should not matter.

: Any suggestions?

: Mark Richards
: Boston

If you "dir *.*" in DOS in an empty directory you get at least two lines of output: "." and ".." Same is true from FileExists. Using file mask like *.* with FileExists does not make sense.
Either use a more specif mask or use JAL Dir (NOT DOS DIR) statement to get the list of files and compare that list to an emty string. If the result if empty, there is no files.

Note that Dir statement does not return "." and ".." as opposite to DIR in DOS