Deleting a file in VBA

Question

Using VBA, how can I:

1. test whether a file exists, and if so,
2. delete it?

Answer 1

1.) Check here. Basically do this:

Function FileExists(ByVal FileToTest As String) As Boolean
   FileExists = (Dir(FileToTest) <> "")
End Function

I'll leave it to you to figure out the various error handling needed but these are among the error handling things I'd be considering:

• Check for an empty string being passed.
• Check for a string containing characters illegal in a file name/path

2.) How To Delete a File. Look at this. Basically use the Kill command but you need to allow for the possibility of a file being read-only. Here's a function for you:

Sub DeleteFile(ByVal FileToDelete As String)
   If FileExists(FileToDelete) Then 'See above          
      ' First remove readonly attribute, if set
      SetAttr FileToDelete, vbNormal          
      ' Then delete the file
      Kill FileToDelete
   End If
End Sub

Again, I'll leave the error handling to you and again these are the things I'd consider:

• Should this behave differently for a directory vs. a file? Should a user have to explicitly have to indicate they want to delete a directory?

• Do you want the code to automatically reset the read-only attribute or should the user be given some sort of indication that the read-only attribute is set?

---

EDIT: Marking this answer as community wiki so anyone can modify it if need be.

Answer 2

An alternative way to code Brettski's answer, with which I otherwise agree entirely, might be

With New FileSystemObject
    If .FileExists(yourFilePath) Then
        .DeleteFile yourFilepath
    End If
End With

Same effect but fewer (well, none at all) variable declarations.

The FileSystemObject is a really useful tool and well worth getting friendly with. Apart from anything else, for text file writing it can actually sometimes be faster than the legacy alternative, which may surprise a few people. (In my experience at least, YMMV).

Answer 3

I'll probably get flamed for this, but what is the point of testing for existence if you are just going to delete it? One of my major pet peeves is an app throwing an error dialog with something like "Could not delete file, it does not exist!"

On Error Resume Next
aFile = "c:\file_to_delete.txt"
Kill aFile
On Error Goto 0
return Len(Dir$(aFile)) > 0 ' Make sure it actually got deleted.

If the file doesn't exist in the first place, mission accomplished!

Answer 4

The following can be used to test for the existence of a file, and then to delete it.

Dim aFile As String
aFile = "c:\file_to_delete.txt"
If Len(Dir$(aFile)) > 0 Then
     Kill aFile
End If 

Answer 5

In VB its normally Dir to find the directory of the file. If it's not blank then it exists and then use Kill to get rid of the file.

test = Dir(Filename)
If Not test = "" Then
    Kill (Filename)
End If

Answer 6

set a reference to the Scripting.Runtime library and then use the FileSystemObject:

Dim fso as New FileSystemObject, aFile as File

if (fso.FileExists("PathToFile")) then
    aFile = fso.GetFile("PathToFile")
    aFile.Delete
End if

Answer 7

Here's a tip: are you re-using the file name, or planning to do something that requires the deletion immediately?

No?

You can get VBA to fire the command DEL "C:\TEMP\scratchpad.txt" /F from the command prompt asynchronously using VBA.Shell:

Shell "DEL " & chr(34) & strPath & chr(34) & " /F ", vbHide

Note the double-quotes (ASCII character 34) around the filename: I'm assuming that you've got a network path, or a long file name containing spaces.

If it's a big file, or it's on a slow network connection, fire-and-forget is the way to go. Of course, you never get to see if this worked or not; but you resume your VBA immediately, and there are times when this is better than waiting for the network.

Answer 8

You can set a reference to the Scripting.Runtime library and then use the FileSystemObject. It has a DeleteFile method and a FileExists method.

See the MSDN article here.