DataMystic

When a wildcard is used in the filespec for the 'Files to process' tab, and the TextPipe filter also uses the 'Single file output' option, the order in which matched files are processed is important. How does TextPipe determine the order?

Suppose an earlier filter had used the 'Split files' filter to split a large file into a number of small files, each sequentially numbered.

Suppose also, that the user renames [or copies] [some of] these small files, such that the files would have a different order IF SORTED ON FILENAME.
Does TextPipe wildcard use the filenames for the processing order, or the order as found in the Windows directory record?

Does the Status tab always accurately represent the order in which files are processed?

Hi David,

TextPipe processes the Files to Process list row in order, so if you had listed
then the files would be processed in the displayed order - c,b,a.

TextPipe does not sort the list of files to process (but you can sort the list by clicking the Filename column heading). In addition, if you use a wildcard, TextPipe retrieves files based on the Windows directory record order, which is generally unsorted.

The status tab always reflects the actual order that files are processed.

If a file matches a wildcard twice, it will be processed twice.

Thanks Simon,

It may be helpful to other users if this description were to be included in the TextPipe help file.

Best regards,
David Haslam

PS. How can a filespec wildcard ever match the same file twice in Windows?

It's already in the help file

A wildcard can't match the same file twice, but let's say you had
c:\files\a.txt
c:\files\*.txt

Then the file a.txt would be included twice.