A little optimization puzzle

williamlove · #1 10-12-2009, 08:22 PM

I think some of you may have learned how to make the following nested If more compact, maybe in an algorithms discussion in school or some such place. If so I'd like to learn the trick. It is an example of a situation I run into occasionally. Or, maybe the code cannot be further reduced and I'm looking for something needlessly. (The code works fine as is.) I had one person give me an incorrect reduction but I'm still curious to see if anyone can teach me something.

bFileMissing = False ' Initialize
If (CantFindFile(sName)) Then
____If bCheckOtherPlace Then
________Call SwitchLocation(sName)
________If (CantFindFile(sName)) Then
____________bFileMissing = False
________Else
____________bFileMissing = True
________End If
____Else
________bFileMissing = True
____End If
Else
____bFileMissing = False
End If

If bFileMissing Then MsgBox "Not Found"

(by the way, how do you overcome the whitespace eliminator and show indentation in examples without doing what I just did?)

vb5prgrmr · #2 10-12-2009, 10:19 PM

[code ] [ /code] tags (no spaces between [ and first character)

Code:

If notfound = true AND SearchOther = True Then
  SwitchLocation
  If NotFound = False Then found = True
End If

If Found = False Then MsgBox "Not Found"

BTW...

Code:

Dim Found As Boolean 'automatically equals false

Code:

Private Sub SomeSub()
Dim Result As Boolean '=false
Result = SomeFunction 'still = false
End Sub

Private Function SomeFunction()
DoEvents
End Function

Boolean variables and Functions that return boolean values are automatically equalling false unless you set them to a true value in some way (= True, = -1)

Good Luck

williamlove · #3 10-13-2009, 04:59 PM

Thanks, I will consider your solution further. I noticed I made an error in my code example, which was a simplified version of my actual code.

I wrote

Code:

If (CantFindFile(sName)) Then
    bFileMissing = False
Else
    bFileMissing = True
End If

which should have been

If (CantFindFile(sName)) Then
    bFileMissing = True
Else
    bFileMissing = False
End If

The actual code I’m trying to reduce is this (Me is an Access form):

Code:

'Now look for a folder containing the ID.
sSearchPath = sCategoryPath & "\*" & Me.txtID & "*"
If Dir(sSearchPath, vbDirectory) = "" Then
    ' We didn't find it. If both Current and MP were checked, then look for it in the other directory.
    ' Note that another routine will inform the user about this situation.
    If bErrorCurrentAndMPBothChecked Then
        If sCategoryPath = sCategoryPath = m_RootFolderPath & "\" & "Current" Then
            sCategoryPath = m_RootFolderPath & "\" & "MeaningfulPast"
            sCategory = "MeaningfulPast"
        Else
            sCategoryPath = sCategoryPath = m_RootFolderPath & "\" & "Current"
            sCategory = "Current"
        End If
        ' Now that we switched, try again...
        sSearchPath = sCategoryPath & "\*" & Me.txtID & "*"
        If Dir(sSearchPath, vbDirectory) = "" Then
            bFolderNotFound = True
        Else
            ' We found it in the other folder.
            bFolderNotFound = False
            sProfileFolderName = Dir(sSearchPath, vbDirectory)
        End If
    Else
        bFolderNotFound = True
    End If
Else
    bFolderNotFound = False
    sProfileFolderName = Dir(sSearchPath, vbDirectory)
End If