[AccessD] Unzip Files

<Then I would shell (and wait) to a command line>
how do you pause Access so that it waits until the process is finished? I
have a process that creates and runs cmd and bat files and then destroys
them. I have to pause Access so that the files are run before Access kills
them. My current method is a kludge. In Excel I use the Wait function. Is
there an analogous function in Access? TIA
Jim Hale

-----Original Message-----
From: DWUTKA at marlow.com [mailto:DWUTKA at marlow.com]
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 5:18 PM
To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: RE: [AccessD] Unzip Files


Sorry for the delay.....but I've been a little swamped during this thread.
Ironically, I am rebuilding an application that 'auto' extracts files from
zips.  It's probably more complex then what you are looking for though. 

I host a realty website (remax realtors).  It has a ton of properties, which
are updated regularly.  The updates are posted to an FTP site, and are
zipped.  The zip files contain both delimited text files with the property
information, and .jpg files with images for the property.

My original application used the INet control in VB, to download the files
to a directory.  Then I would shell (and wait) to a command line that
unzipped all of the files to that folder.  That was actually pretty easy to
do. The REAL fun part was then to extract all of the information from the
unzipped text files, update the database, and then sort all the pictures
(and create thumbnails for them).  The only trick on the first part was the
unzipping.  I found and Add-on for WinZip, which works perfectly, but the
only catch is that you have to have a registered version of WinZip for it to
truly work automated.  If it's not registered, the command line prompts you
for things...which is a little quirky for an 'automated' system.  So I
splurged on the $29 to register WinZip.  It was money well spent.  The
command line works wonderfully, and better yet, the registered version of
WinZip has a lot of neat features to use.

The reason I am rebuilding this application, is because I spent the last few
weeks rebuilding my home network.  Now that I have everything setup at home
(almost), I want to improve this process.  It's downloading about 1.5 gigs
worth of zip files, which even over my 3 megabit connection, takes a while.
Then it unzips them (which can take just as long, or longer), then it runs
the 'update' process.  During the download, doing anything on my own crawls
to dialup speed sometimes.  During the rest, that server is pretty tied up.
I decided to change the download/unzip process, and also modify the update
process, so that my customers will be able to track what has been updated.
In the download/unzip phase, I was using the INet control, which is quirky,
and the way I had it setup, I knew what file was downloading, but not how
big it was, or how fast it was downloading, and I couldn't pause it, only
kill the whole process.  So the new process (which I have the dl/unzip phase
done, working on the new update process) downloads everything using API
calls, and not only shows the file size, but how much has been downloaded
and even has pause and cancel buttons. (Can't pause it forever, because the
FTP site will time out, but I'm going to fix that too.....).  So now, if I
want to use the net at high speeds, when this thing is running, I can just
go to the server, and pause the process.  I also made a modification to the
zip process.  Instead of one big unzip '*.zip' command line, I have the VB
program start a new thread, and that thread starts runs the unzip process
for one zip file.  Works like a charm.  (It's all event driven too, so when
the last zip thread is done, it raises an event the main process can use to
launch the update process).

Drew

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