Hi:

I am not that familiar with automation tools on Windows.

So here is a brief explanation of how I automate this task on the MacIntosh.

I read the contents of a folder of PDF files and then write the returned string to a text file. That file is then imported into filemaker.

Here is the Applescript/Shell Command that reads the file.

set theFolderList to do shell script "ls '/Volumes/main/Business/ADD/Export/'".

How would I achieve the same on the Windows side.

Thanks in advance

2 different methods you can use: a command line or a VBscript. A VBscript requires more code but has also more power. I've included a script below. There are however a couple of hoops you have to jump through to use the VBscript approach.

Let's stick with the command line approach:

cmd /c dir /b c:theFolder >c:outputfile.txt

You use the Send Event script step to execute this.

Anatomy:

"cmd /c" calls the Windows command line interperter and tells it to quit when done with the command ("/c")

"dir /b" tells Windows to produce a list of files, but just the names no other info ("/b")

">c:outputfile.text" tells Windows not to show the list on the screen but to redirect the output to a text file

-------------------------------------------

Set sh = CreateObject ("Shell.Application")

Set oFolder = sh.Namespace ("d:downloads")

Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")

For Each filename In oFolder.Items

filenamesstring = filenamesstring & "," & filename

Next

Set oFile = fso.CreateTextFile("c:testfile.txt", True)

oFile.WriteLine(filenamesstring)

oFile.Close

Thanks Wim

After you have the outputfile.txt, how would i get the contents of that file into a filed on my database. Using import creates seperate records. I would like to bring the entire dir list into 1 record in one field.. Is that possible?

Thanks Stu

Yep, but it takes some wizardry :

Make sure there is only one record in your found set. Import into a global, use the "update existing" option of the import.

AHHH!! Very Nice Thanks for the tip