Parsing a txt file into Word

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Cato Larsen - 11 Feb 2008 13:30 GMT

Hello!
I've been asked to create a word document that parse a txt file and draw out
the needed information.

Does anyone have any handy resources or usefull ideas on how to do this with
the least amount of problems?

The txt file is a report that is exported from a Cisco router / firewall or
the likes and contain basic formatting as well as different info down. Sadly,
it can only export to txt and not XML or the likes which is much easier to
work with.

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Cato Larsen - 11 Feb 2008 13:35 GMT

A quick note and some additional info:
This would be easier to do in Excel. Sadly, this is not an option.
Thus this request.

The text will be parsed and inserted into different kinds of tables.

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Doug Robbins - Word MVP - 11 Feb 2008 19:51 GMT

You would have to give us some information about the file with which you
have to work. How is the data arranged in it? What constitutes a discrete
piece of data, etc. etc?

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Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

>A quick note and some additional info:
> This would be easier to do in Excel. Sadly, this is not an option.
> Thus this request.
>
> The text will be parsed and inserted into different kinds of tables.

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Cato Larsen - 12 Feb 2008 07:19 GMT

The formatting of the text file is as follows:
At the top there are about 4-5 lines of junk. This can be discarded.
Next up are some 30 lines (has to be counted dynamicly) with the following
formatting:
name ipAddress hostAdress
Example of the line formatted:
name 169.154.0.1 server.myWorld.com

name is static to all these lines.

Next up is interfaces, and they are separated by an exclamation mark before
each "box" of text.
Formatting:
interface interfaceName
nameif nameOfService
security-level lvl
ip address ipAddress hostMask

Example:
interface vlan123
nameif Inside
security-level 100
ip address 169.154.0.1 255.255.255.0

interface, nameif, security-level & ip address are static to this bulk of
text.

Next are some object groups
Formatting;
object-group type GR-name
network-object ipAddress HostMask

Example:
object-group network GR-internet
network-object 169.154.0.0 255.255.255.0
network-object 169.155.0.0 255.255.0.0
port-object eq 123
group-object GR-here-internett
icmp-object echo-reply

One object-group can contain an unknown amount of objects and other types of
service descriptors.

------------------------------
My biggest issue is how to get this info into tables with a formatting &
having it dynamicly update if the data.txt file is changed.
I've never parsed text in Word before, so the whole approach is new to me,
and google was for once not that helpfull in my search for parsing txt files
in word.

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Cato Larsen
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Karl E. Peterson - 13 Feb 2008 00:42 GMT

> I've never parsed text in Word before, so the whole approach is new to me,
> and google was for once not that helpfull in my search for parsing txt files
> in word.

Last thing first. You're parsing text files in VB(A), not Word! That's the first
mindset that needs to change. This isn't a job for Word.

> The formatting of the text file is as follows:

How big are these files? Presumably, very small, right? A few hundred K, at most?

I would advise reading the entire file into an array of "lines" and parsing them one
by one. That's pretty easy to do, sorta like this:

Dim TheLines() As String
TheLines = Split$(ReadFile(MyFile$), vbCrLf)

Public Function ReadFile(ByVal FileName As String) As String
Dim hFile As Long
On Error GoTo Hell
hFile = FreeFile
Open FileName For Binary As #hFile
ReadFile = Space$(LOF(hFile))
Get #hFile, , ReadFile
Close #hFile
Hell:
End Function

Then, you start looping through the file, line by line.

> At the top there are about 4-5 lines of junk. This can be discarded.

Is there a "comment" like marker for these? Something to identify them as junk? If
not, you'll need to decide whether it's 4 or 5. That matters. At any rate, in your
loop through TheLines(), you simply skip processing these. (I'd probably advise
also adding a test here to be sure the line isn't empty, and skip those too?)

I would suggest you create a series of flags that keep track of what section you're
in, if the sections always follow the same pattern. For instance:

Const secJunk = 0
Const secNames = 1
Const secInterfaces = 2
'etc
Private m_Section As Long

> Next up are some 30 lines (has to be counted dynamicly) with the following
> formatting:
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> name is static to all these lines.

Dim ThisLine As Variant

If m_Section <= secNames Then
If InStr(1, TheLines(i), "name", vbTextCompare) = 1 Then
' Set section flag to Names section!
m_Section = secNames
' Parse this line.
ThisLine = Split(Trim$(TheLines(i)), " ")
ipAddress = ThisLine(1)
hostAddress = ThisLine(2)
' Do something with this data?
End If
End IF

> Next up is interfaces, and they are separated by an exclamation mark before
> each "box" of text.
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
> interface, nameif, security-level & ip address are static to this bulk of
> text.

Same pattern as last section.

If m_Section <= secInterfaces Then
If InStr(1, TheLines(i), "interface", vbTextCompare) = 1 Then
' Set section flag to Names section!
m_Section = secInterfaces
' Parse this line.
ThisLine = Split(Trim$(TheLines(i)), " ")
interfaceName = ThisLine(1)
' Parse next line.
ThisLine = Split(Trim$(TheLines(i + 1)), " ")
nameif = ThisLine(1)
' Parse next line.
ThisLine = Split(Trim$(TheLines(i + 2)), " ")
security-level = ThisLine(1)
' Parse next line.
ThisLine = Split(Trim$(TheLines(i + 3)), " ")
ipAddress = ThisLine(2)
hostMask = ThisLine(3)
' Do something with this data?
End If
End IF

You'll have to insure your naming scheme is logically consistent with the above
assumptions, of course.

> Next are some object groups
> Formatting;
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> One object-group can contain an unknown amount of objects and other types of
> service descriptors.

Same pattern as before. <g>

> My biggest issue is how to get this info into tables with a formatting &
> having it dynamicly update if the data.txt file is changed.

Now(!), you're talking about using Word. Up until now, it's all been VB(A). I
don't know diddly about Word, so perhaps someone else can lend a hand here.

Have fun...

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Cato Larsen - 13 Feb 2008 07:10 GMT

Excellent reply Karl. Thanks a lot for the insight on how to best solve this
with with VB in Word. :)

Can anyone help out regarding the word part of this issue? How to insert the
data gathered into tables?

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Doug Robbins - Word MVP - 13 Feb 2008 11:46 GMT

You will need to declare a document object, a table object and a row object

Dim ddoc as Document
Dim dtable as Table
Dim drow as Row

then at the beginning create a new document with a one row table in it

Set ddoc = Documents.Add
set dtable = ddoc.Tables.Add(ddoc.Range, 1, n)

where n is the required number of columns,

Then, at the point where you have accumulated the data for one record, use

Set drow = dtables.Rows.Add

then for each piece of data use

drow.cells(i).Range.Text = the data

and increment i for each piece of data

Then repeat the adding of rows and populating of the cells in that row for
each record.

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Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

> Excellent reply Karl. Thanks a lot for the insight on how to best solve
> this
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> the
> data gathered into tables?

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Cato Larsen - 13 Feb 2008 12:44 GMT

Excellent!

Thank you for the in-depth explanation. Will help me out a lot!
Time to get down and dirty and start working on this bugger.

Thank you all who contributed to this thread!

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Karl E. Peterson - 11 Feb 2008 23:25 GMT

> I've been asked to create a word document that parse a txt file and draw out
> the needed information.

What part of this are you having trouble with? Reading the text file? Separating
it into lines? Separating the lines into fields? Understanding that a job like
this has numerous specific requirements, each of which must be precisely defined?

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