Active Document date & time

[Vorpal]

I want to use an UltraEdit java script to do a save as, but I want it to abort if the file being overwritten is newer than a particular timestamp.

I cannot find a way to retrieve the date and time of the active (or any other) file. Am I missing something?

Is there a way to create a new "Scripting.FileSystemObject" and work with that? My few attempts failed.

Is it possible to invoke UltraCompare from within a script? That would be cool too.

--Vorpal

[Mofi]

You can define a user tool which calls DOS command dir with the full file name of interest and capture the output which you then can scan for the file date/time.

For your UltraCompare question see Open UCL from script.

[jorrasdk]

Hi Vorpal

Did you succeed finding a solution from the hint given by Mofi ?

Just as an excercise (I'm funny that way ) I decided to try this out and have made the script below. Read the comments carefully as they explain how to set up a user tool.

I assumed the file whose timestamp we want to check isn't a file already open in UE. Otherwise I could have configured the user tool with %F instead of %sel%.

The solution isn't pretty but lacking this kind of access to the file system in the Javascript language (per definition) and UltraEdit-main object, a user tool using DOS DIR command is the only way to retrieve information of file timestamps, sizes and other attributes (ie. write protected) from the file system into UE.

Code: Select all

// No warrenty. Use at own risk. Modify freely. Improvements welcome. Share with others

// We are going to retrieve the the date and time this file was last saved:
var wrkFileName = "C:\\temp\\temp.txt";

// Support function used later on: remove starting and ending / as UE does not recognize these for regexp
RegExp.prototype.toUEregexp = function() { return this.toString().replace(/^\/|\/$/g, ""); };

// get the timestamp as a javascript Date object. getFileTimestamp is the central function.
var fileTimestamp = getFileTimestamp(wrkFileName);

// If not null = timestamp extracted/file is found on file system:
if (fileTimestamp) {
   // Write timestamp - do your own formatting
   // - see http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_obj_date.asp
   // - and see http://www.svendtofte.com/code/date_format/
   UltraEdit.messageBox("File "+wrkFileName+" last saved: "+fileTimestamp.toString(),"getFileTimestamp");
}
else {
   UltraEdit.messageBox("File "+wrkFileName+" not found","getFileTimestamp");
}

// ---------------------------------------------------------
function getFileTimestamp(inFileName) {
   // This function will return a timestamp (Date() object) of the input file or Null
   // if file is not found
   
   // Save active file index
   var wrkActiveFileIndex = getActiveDocumentIndex();

   // Configure a user tool in : Advanced\Tool configuration with the folling setup:
   //
   // Menu item name = DIRtimestamp
   // Command line = DIR %sel%
   // Options tab: DOS Program, uncheck 'save active file' and 'save all files first'
   // Output tab: 'Capture output' checked.

   // Now write the filename into the active file and select:
   UltraEdit.activeDocument.top();
   UltraEdit.activeDocument.write(inFileName);
   UltraEdit.activeDocument.selectToTop();
   // Now run user tool DIRtimestamp
   UltraEdit.runTool("DIRtimestamp");
   //
   // Parse output according to local date format (important!!):
   //
   //  Indhold af C:\temp
   //
   // 19-09-2007  21:55            34.790 temp.txt

   // setup perl regexp for finding first occurence of date/time:
   // pattern is expected to be d-m-Y H:i
   var findTimestampRe = /(\d\d)-(\d\d)-(\d\d\d\d)\s+(\d\d):(\d\d)/;
   UltraEdit.perlReOn();
   UltraEdit.activeDocument.findReplace.regExp=true;
   UltraEdit.activeDocument.findReplace.find(findTimestampRe.toUEregexp());

   if (! UltraEdit.activeDocument.isFound()) {
      UltraEdit.closeFile(UltraEdit.activeDocument.path,2);
      UltraEdit.activeDocument.deleteText(); /* delete inFileName */
      return; /* no return value = null */
   }

   // get selected timestamp
   var wrkTimestampText = UltraEdit.activeDocument.selection;

   // now parse timestamp with perl regexp and destructuring assign
   var [, wDay,wMonth,wYear,wHours,wMinutes] = findTimestampRe.exec(wrkTimestampText);

   // Assign the parsed/extracted data to a date object:
   var outDate = new Date();
   outDate.setYear(wYear);
   outDate.setMonth(wMonth - 1); /* Javascript month numbers start from 0 = Jan */
   outDate.setDate(wDay);
   outDate.setHours(wHours);
   outDate.setMinutes(wMinutes);
   outDate.setSeconds(0); /* We do not get seconds from DIR command output */

   // Close output from DIR user tool
   UltraEdit.closeFile(UltraEdit.activeDocument.path,2);

   // Restore focus on previously active file:
   UltraEdit.document[wrkActiveFileIndex].setActive();

   // Remove the inFileName again which is still selected
   UltraEdit.activeDocument.deleteText();

   return outDate;
}

// ---------------------------------------------------------
/* Find the tab index of the active document */
function getActiveDocumentIndex() {
   var tabindex = -1; /* start value */

   for (i = 0; i < UltraEdit.document.length; i++)
   {
      if (UltraEdit.activeDocument.path==UltraEdit.document[i].path) {
         tabindex = i;
         break;
      }
   }
   return tabindex;
}