coding puzzle

[gelo]

heyo new here,

ive been writing a program to edit a special file that is a text based mesh file. In the program i want to make a special replace feature. ive tried so many times but to no avail...

im useing visual basic express 2005

When i get my prog to search for the substring "material="#"" (# = any number including -1)in multiple strings,

i want the first material="#" its found to be changed to material="0",

and the second material="#" its found to be changed to material="1"

and the third material="#" its found to be changed to material="2" and so on and so forth

all this is done via a button on a separate form. the material="#" is in a richtextbox in the main form

if you can get my gist lol, is it possible to do that? if you thought of any code i would be so greatfull for it. with the help youve supplied this site will be referenced in the help box including the person with the code that works.

THANKS!

 

[JohnH]

The solution in post 2 works fine, but I can see another solution too if the data is valid Xml. From the fragment you posted it appears to be but there need to be a single root node and the MESH node need to be closed also, like this:

<meshes>
  <HEADER MAGIC="XMF" VERSION="919" />
  <MESH NUMSUBMESH="2">
    <SUBMESH NUMVERTICES="399" NUMFACES="664" NUMLODSTEPS="0" NUMSPRINGS="0" NUMMORPHS="0" NUMTEXCOORDS="1" MATERIAL="123">
      <VERTEX NUMINFLUENCES="1" ID="0">
        <POS>47.2458 -73.3203 1101.75</POS>
        <NORM>0.577543 -0.650535 0.493202</NORM>
        <COLOR>1 1 1</COLOR>
        <TEXCOORD>0.576221 0.13896</TEXCOORD>
        <INFLUENCE ID="22">1</INFLUENCE>
      </VERTEX>
      <FACE VERTEXID="0 1 2" />
    </SUBMESH>
    <SUBMESH NUMVERTICES="399" NUMFACES="664" NUMLODSTEPS="0" NUMSPRINGS="0" NUMMORPHS="0" NUMTEXCOORDS="1" MATERIAL="321">
      <VERTEX NUMINFLUENCES="1" ID="0">
        <POS>47.2458 -73.3203 1101.75</POS>
        <NORM>0.577543 -0.650535 0.493202</NORM>
        <COLOR>1 1 1</COLOR>
        <TEXCOORD>0.576221 0.13896</TEXCOORD>
        <INFLUENCE ID="22">1</INFLUENCE>
      </VERTEX>
      <FACE VERTEXID="0 1 2" />
    </SUBMESH>
  </MESH>
</meshes>

In that case you can use Xml methods to do the replace:

Sub xmlreplacemesh()
    Dim xmldoc As New Xml.XmlDocument
    xmldoc.Load("meshInput.xml")
    Dim submeshes As Xml.XmlNodeList = xmldoc.SelectNodes("meshes/MESH/SUBMESH")
    For i As Integer = 0 To submeshes.Count - 1
        submeshes(i).Attributes("MATERIAL").Value = i.ToString
    Next
    xmldoc.Save("meshOutput.xml")
End Sub

 

[gelo]

hey thanks ofr the heads up, i was going to use xml but as you stated the reason why not is why i didnt choose that path since the xmf file does not use the xml standard.

 

[gelo]

DUDE YOU ARE A MASTER!!! *bows down to the*

im SO adding you to the thanks list!!!!!

i will be back on this site when i start my course project and i have any probs!

i say thankyou again and again hehe