Problem

A customer asks if there is a way or if a cbl routine exists to search for filenames that contains  a certain character (space in this case).

In Visual Basic it could be a simple three line program such as:

Dim result = My.Computer.FileSystem.FindInFiles("c:\\", " ", False, FileIO.SearchOption.SearchAllSubDirectories)

        For Each name As String In result
            ListBox1.Items.Add(name)
        Next

What would be the equivalent code in Visual COBOL for both managed code and native code projects?

 Resolution

 For managed code COBOL the VB program above could be written as the following: (The assembly Microsoft.VisualBasic must also be added as a reference to the COBOL project)

      $set ilusing"Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO"
      $set ilusing"System.Collections.ObjectModel"
       program-id. Program1 as "testfind.Program1".

       data division.
       working-storage section.
       01 result type ReadOnlyCollection[string]. 
       procedure division.

          set result to type FileSystem::FindInFiles("c:\\", " ", false, type 
             Microsoft.VisualBasic.FileIO.SearchOption::SearchAllSubDirectories)
          perform varying filename as string thru result
             display filename
          end-perform
        
          goback.

and the native code equivalent (or close to it) should work with the CBL_DIR_SCAN_START, CBL_DIR_SCAN_READ routines like:

       id division.
       program-id.  testscandir.
       data division.
       working-storage section.
       01 handle usage pointer.
       01 pattern.
          05 pattern-length   pic x(2) comp-5.
          05 pattern-content  pic x(100) value spaces.
          05 search-attribute pic x(4) comp-5.
       01 flags               pic x(4) comp-5 value 2.
       01 search-status       pic x(4) comp-5 value zeroes.
       01 scan-entry.
          05 scan-attribute   pic x(4) comp-5 value zeroes.
          05 scan-date-stamp.
             10 scan-year     pic x(4) comp-5 value zeroes.
             10 scan-month    pic x(2) comp-5 value zeroes.
             10 scan-day      pic x(2) comp-5 value zeroes.
             10 scan-hour     pic x(2) comp-5 value zeroes.
             10 scan-minute   pic x(2) comp-5 value zeroes.
             10 scan-second   pic x(2) comp-5 value zeroes.
             10 scan-millisec pic x(2) comp-5 value zeroes.
             10 scan-dst      pic x    comp-5 value zeroes.
          05 scan-size        pic x(8) comp-5 value zeroes.
          05 scan-name.
             10 scan-max-len  pic x(2) comp-5 value zeroes.
             10 scan-entry-name pic x(100)    value spaces.
       01 test-bit            pic x(4) comp-5 value 0.
       01 sub1                pic 9(3)        value 0.
       procedure division.


           move "C:\\* *" to pattern-content
           perform varying sub1 from length of pattern-content by -1
              until pattern-content = 0
              if pattern-content(sub1:1) not = " "
                 move x"00" to pattern-content(sub1   1:1)
                 exit perform
              end-if
           end-perform

           move 0 to pattern-length
           move 0 to search-attribute
           move length of scan-entry-name to scan-max-len

           call "CBL_DIR_SCAN_START"
              using by reference handle
                                 pattern
                    by value     search-attribute
                                 flags
              returning search-status
           end-call
           display search-status
           if search-status not = 0
              display "error on start"
             stop run
           end-if

           perform until exit
              call "CBL_DIR_SCAN_READ"
                 using by reference handle
                                    scan-entry
                 returning search-status
              end-call
              if search-status not = 0
                 exit perform
              else
                 display scan-entry-name
              end-if
           end-perform

           call "CBL_DIR_SCAN_END"
              using by reference handle
              returning   search-status
           end-call
           stop run.