How To Use the Common Dialog Control with Multiple Long File Names

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Step-by-Step Example

1. Start a new Standard EXE project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.
2. From the Project menu, select Components, check Microsoft Common Dialog Control, and click OK.
3. Add a Common Dialog control, two TextBoxes, and a CommandButton to Form1.
4. Make Text2 fairly tall, set the MultiLine property to True, and set the Scrollbars property to "2 - vertical."
5. Put the following code in the form's module:

        '*** Start Code ****
       Option Explicit
   
      Private Sub Command1_Click()
      Dim current As Integer
      Dim I As Integer
      Dim intIndex As Integer
      Dim iStart As Integer
      Dim FileNames$()
      Dim sFname As String
      Dim iEndPath As Integer
   
      Text2.Text = ""
      With CommonDialog1
         .MaxFileSize = 2048   ' Set as appropriate
         .filename = ""
         .Filter = "All Files|*.*"
         .Flags = cdlOFNAllowMultiselect + cdlOFNExplorer
         .ShowOpen
         sFname = .filename & vbNullChar
      End With
   
      iEndPath = 1
      ' determine if multiple files were selected
      ' null delimiter is not inserted if only 1 file is selected
      If countDelimiters(sFname, vbNullChar) = 1 Then
         Do Until (iEndPath = 0)
            iStart = iEndPath + 1
            iEndPath = InStr(iEndPath + 1, sFname, "\")
         Loop
         ReDim Preserve FileNames(0)
         ' determine if root directory was selected - preserve the "\"
         If countDelimiters(sFname, "\") = 1 Then
            FileNames(0) = Mid(sFname, 1, iStart - 1)
         Else
            FileNames(0) = Mid(sFname, 1, iStart - 2)
         End If
      Else
         iStart = InStr(1, sFname, vbNullChar) + 1
         ReDim Preserve FileNames(0)
         FileNames(0) = Left(sFname, iStart - 2)
      End If
   
      intIndex = 1
      For I = iStart To Len(sFname)
         If Mid(sFname, I, 1) = vbNullChar Then
           ReDim Preserve FileNames(intIndex)
           FileNames(intIndex) = Mid(sFname, iStart, I - iStart)
           iStart = I + 1
           intIndex = intIndex + 1
         End If
      Next I
   
      ' display information in proper text box
      For I = 0 To UBound(FileNames)
         If I Then
            Text2.Text = Text2.Text & FileNames(I) & vbCrLf
         Else
            Text1.Text = FileNames(I)
         End If
      Next I
   
      End Sub
   
      Function countDelimiters(ByVal sFiles As String, _
         ByVal vSearchChar As Variant) As Integer
   
       Dim iCtr As Integer
       Dim iResult As Integer
   
       For iCtr = 1 To Len(sFiles)
           If Mid(sFiles, iCtr, 1) = vSearchChar Then iResult = iResult + 1
       Next iCtr
   
       countDelimiters = iResult
   
      End Function
      '*** End Code ***
   					

6. Run the sample. The folder is listed in Text1 and the files are listed in Text2.NOTE: This coding example contains no error handling. Microsoft recommends that you provide a means of dealing with potential errors before using this example in a production system.