iup.getparam in Lua -- prompting for a directory - lua

I'm writing a Lua program that must prompt the user for a directory as one of a number of parameters for an operation (that involves copying a file to a target directory with a new name). Environment is Windows; I'm using Lua 5.1.
The relevant code currently looks like
require("iuplua")
local mediaFolder = "C:\some folder\some subfolder\"
local pPrompt = --this is a subset of the parameters
"File name: %s\n"..
"Destination: %f[DIR||"..mediaFolder.."]\n"
ret, strTargetFile, strTargetPath =
iup.GetParam("Add Media from file ", param_action, pPrompt, "Initial file name", mediaFolder)
The resultant GUI looks like:
but when the selector button (...) is pressed, the initial directory shown is not C:\some folder\some subfolder\ but whatever directory was last navigated to in the interface, and it isn't possible to select a directory, only a file.
I'm guessing I have a fundamental misunderstanding of how this should work? Is what I want to do possible with iup? Ideally, I'd also like to restrict the user to only selecting the initial directory or one of its sub-directories rather than navigating anywhere outside that directory structure, and to allow the user to create a new sub-folder.

This looks like a bug. I'll check it.
Don't know if Stack Overflow is a place for bug reports, but I monitor iup posts here.
Best

Related

Can I avoid hardcoding file locations in SPSS syntax?

I'm using SPSS 25 syntax to open and process a set of datafiles. I would like these syntax files to be as portable as possible. For that reason, I want the user to be able to select the file locations at runtime without having to recode the syntax itself.
I'm running Windows 10, although hopefully that doesn't matter. I do have the Python plugin for SPSS, although ideally this would be a base SPSS syntax solution.
In SPSS right now, I'm doing this:
GET
FILE='C:\Users\xkcd\studies\project\rawdata'+
'\reallyraw\veryraw.sav'
PASSWORD='CorrectHorseBatteryStaple'.
DATASET NAME Demo WINDOW=FRONT.
In R, I would do this:
message("Where is the veryraw.sav file?")
demo<-fread(file.choose())
Ideally, the user would, at runtime, select the individual files one at a time.
Less ideally, the user would select a folder in which all of the files, with known names.
I could use FILE HANDLE so that the user would only have to hardcode a few folder locations, but that's less than ideal - I really would rather that the user isn't editing the syntax at all.
Thanks in advance!
Following up on the idea of a fully automated process - the following code will work assuming there is a specific file name you need to run your code on, and only one copy exists in the folder you are searching. This is possible to run on drive C: directly, but will take much less time to run if you can narrow down the path:
* this will create a text file that has the path of the required file.
HOST COMMAND=['dir /s /b "C:\Users\somename\*required file name.sav" > C:\Users\somename\tempname.sps'].
* now to read the name and put in in a handle.
DATA LIST file = "C:\Users\somename\tempname.sps" fixed / pth 1-500 (a).
exe.
string cmd(a500).
compute cmd=concat("file handle myfile / name='", rtrim(pth), "'.").
write out="C:\Users\somename\tempname.sps" /cmd.
exe.
* inserting the new syntax will activate the handle.
insert file = "C:\Users\somename\tempname.sps".
Now you can use the handle myfile in the syntax, e.g:
get file=myfile.

Difference between App.Path and using a ShellObject.Self.Path

I am converting a VB6 application to VB.NET. In the code I am converting, it seems that the developer found the applications path two separate ways. However, it appears that he expects the two methods to produce different results.
Simple question:
What is the difference between calling these two lines of code:
strAppDataPath = CreateObject("Shell.Application").
NameSpace(ssfLOCALAPPDATA).Self.Path
and
strAppDataPath = App.Path
Explanation:
This is the code in question:
strAppDataPath = CreateObject("Shell.Application").
NameSpace(ssfLOCALAPPDATA).Self.Path
strAppDataPath = strAppDataPath & "\DataFolder\"
If (Not objFileSystem.FileExists(strAppDataPath & strAppDataFile)) Then
If (objFileSystem.FileExists(App.Path & strAppDataFile)) Then
...
End If
End If
The application's path is appended with \DataFolder\, and stored in the String strAppDatapath.
We check if the file strAppDataFile does not exist in strAppDatapath. Followed by checking if the file does exist in App.Path.
The concept behind what is going on makes sense to me: If the file doesn't exist in the subfolder, and if the file exists in App.Path, then do .... What I do not understand is why they didn't use one of the method for finding the application's path exclusively.
They don't point to the same path.
App.Path: Path where the currently executing EXE/DLL resides.
CreateObject("Shell.Application").NameSpace(ssfLOCALAPPDATA).Self.Path: Will point to the local (non-roaming) app data user folder. Same as the value in (user) environment variable LOCALAPPDATA.
Since Windows XP, the roaming & local app data paths are preferred places to store user settings and files (instead of the probably rights-restricted app folder).
So what the code does, is:
Look for strAppDataFile in %LOCALAPPDATA%\DataFolder\ (e.g. where "%LOCALAPPDATA%" could point to "C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\" on Windows Vista/7)
If not found, look for the same file in the application folder.
Please note that preferably applications should create an application specific sub-directory in local/roaming app data, e.g. use something like:
strAppDataPath = strAppDataPath & "\" & App.ProductName & "\DataFolder\"
' NOTE: Make sure to set the "Product Name" entry in the version information
' of the project settings
that could resolve to something like
"C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\My Application\DataFolder\"
My guess is that when the program is installed per-machine, a per-user location under LocalAppData is used. However during development or when installed per-user or as a portable application the application folder is used.
Some programmers use something like the code in question, while others make the decision by comparing App.Path against the ssfPROGRAMFILES path to determine the environment. The latter is probably preferable for a number of reasons but in the degenerate case where only one instance of the program exists on a machine they're equivalent.

Windows 7 - Add Path

I need to add a new path (sumatraPDF) on my PATH variable.
I don't know why it does not work...
I think everything is right but when I try to execute sumatrapdf.exe from CMD it cannot find the program.
This is what I did:
The path is correct, I checked it 1000 times.
The idea is use LaTeX with sublimetext and when I save a .text file sumatra has to open and show to me the result. If I want that I have to add the path of SumatraPDF... but it does not work.
I think you are editing something in the windows registry but that has no effect on the path.
Try this:
How to Add, Remove or Edit Environment variables in Windows 7
the variable of interest is the PATH
also you can type on the command line:
Set PATH=%PATH%;(your new path);
Another method that worked for me on Windows 7 that did not require administrative privileges:
Click on the Start menu, search for "environment," click "Edit environment variables for your account."
In the window that opens, select "PATH" under "User variables for username" and click the "Edit..." button. Add your new path to the end of the existing Path, separated by a semi-colon (%PATH%;C:\Python27;...;C:\NewPath). Click OK on all the windows, open a new CMD window, and test the new variable.
I founded the problem:
Just insert the folder without the executable file.
so Instead of:
C:\Program Files (x86)\SumatraPDF\SumatraPDF.exe
you have to write this:
C:\Program Files (x86)\SumatraPDF\
In answer to the OP:
The PATH environment variable specifies which folders Windows will search in, in order to find such files as executable programs or DLLs. To make your Windows installation find your program, you specify the folder that the program resides in, NOT the program file itself!
So, if you want Windows to look for executables (or other desired files) in the folder:
C:\PHP
because, for example, you want to install PHP manually, and choose that folder into which to install PHP, then you add the entry:
C:\PHP
to your PATH environment variable, NOT an entry such as "C:\PHP\php.exe".
Once you've added the folder entry to your PATH environment variable, Windows will search that folder, and will execute ANY named executable file you specify, if that file happens to reside in that folder, just the same as with all the other existing PATH entries.
Before editing your PATH variable, though, protect yourself against foul ups in advance. Copy the existing value of the PATH variable to a Notepad file, and save it as a backup. If you make a mistake editing PATH, you can simply revert to the previous version with ease if you take this step.
Once you've done that, append your desired path entries to the text (again, I suggest you do this in Notepad so you can see what you're doing - the Windows 7 text box is a pain to read if you have even slight vision impairment), then paste that text into the Windows text box, and click OK.
Your PATH environment variable is a text string, consisting of a list of folder paths, each entry separated by semicolons. An example has already been given by someone else above, such as:
C:\Program Files; C:\Winnt; C:\Winnt\System32
Your exact version may vary depending upon your system.
So, to add "C:\PHP" to the above, you change it to read as follows:
C:\Program Files; C:\Winnt; C:\Winnt\System32; C:\PHP
Then you copy & paste that text into the windows dialogue box, click OK, and you should now have a new PATH variable, ready to roll. If your changes don't take effect immediately, you can always restart the computer.
The path is a list of directories where the command prompt will look for executable files, if it can't find it in the current directory. The OP seems to be trying to add the actual executable, when it just needs to specify the path where the executable is.
Try this in cmd:
cd address_of_sumatrapdf.exe_file && sumatrapdf.exe
Where you should put the address of your .exe file instead of adress_of_sumatrapdf.exe_file.

Lua - My documents path and file creation date

I'm planning to do a program with Lua that will first of all read specific files
and get information from those files. So my first question is whats the "my documents" path name? I have searched a lot of places, but I'm unable to find anything. My second question is how can I use the first four letters of a file name to see which one is the newest made?
Finding the files in "my documents" then find the newest created file and read it.
The reading part shouldn't be a problem, but navigating to "my documents" and finding the newest created file in a folder.
For your first question, depends how robust you want your script to be. You could use Lua's builtin os.getenv() to get a variety of environment vars related to user, such as USERNAME, USERPROFILE, HOMEDRIVE, HOMEPATH. Example:
username = os.getenv('USERNAME')
dir = 'C:\\users\\' .. username .. '\\Documents'
For the second question, there is no builtin mechanism in Windows to have the file creation or modification timestamp as part of the filename. You could read the creation or modification timestamp, via a C extension you create or using an existing Lua library like lfs. Or you could read the contents of a folder and parse the filenames if they were named according to the pattern you mention. Again there is nothing built into Lua to do this, you would either use os.execute() or lfs or, again, your own C extension module, or combinations of these.

Python kivy filechooser reads wrong path

I'm trying to use Kivy as a GUI for my python app, which needs to read a file from the filesystem.
However, in some cases the kivy filechooser read wrong path or nothing causing an IndexError while I'm trying to set the read path for a text of a textfield.
I use the default example for reading files learned from http://kivy.org/docs/api-kivy.uix.filechooser.html
The relevant part of my app is in this function, where an exception handling is added as a not a good approach to handle this :)
def load(self, path, filename):
'''
this will load the file and dismiss the dialog
'''
print "Loading file..."
print "filename:",filename
print "path:",path
try:
self.selected_file = filename[0]
self.file_text_input.text = self.selected_file
self.dismiss_popup()
except IndexError as ie:
print "Something made a boo-boo...try again"+str(ie)
self.dismiss_popup()
self.show_popup("ERROR","Somehow I couldn't load the file:\nCheck the permissions or move it to other place")
self.show_popup() is just a helper function, which shows a popup with the set function params.
The basic error is that filename[0] will throw an IndexError since it does not read the correct path.
I'm using Linux with python2.7, and somethimes when I select a file in my home folder, the filename variable stores nothing, while path variable stores misteriously a random folder, for instance, /media, /opt, etc.
Did anyone meet this issue?
I found out why it was handled uncorrectly.
All the failures are caused by Kivy's
FileChooserListView
, which enables to click on folders and files via a list, but it also makes it possible to have a littel '>' sign at the beginning of every list element, which are directories.
I realized that when I used these '>' signs, then I get wrong path, but if I always clicks on the directories' list elements then everything works fine.
However, that little '>' cannot be disabled (for now), so the best and fastest alternate solution is using
FileChooserIconView
instead!
Now everything is good :)

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