Question

I have a large VB6 app with many .frm files. I want to basically ‘gut’ the code from all the forms and just leave the GUI design.

What would be the best way to perform this task quickly?

Answer 1

If you really have enough forms that you can’t just open each form and Ctrl + A, Del, Ctrl + S Then you can always write a quick VB program to do it. Visual Basic puts the information needed to display the form at the beginning of the file followed by the code. Copy each .frm file to a backup, open it and write everything up to the last Attribute … line to a new file with the original file name. Pretty dirty, but should only take about 15-20 minutes to write and leaves you a backup in case of error.

Sample .frm content

VERSION 5.00
Begin VB.Form Form1
    Caption = "Form1"
    ClientHeight = 3195
    ClientLeft = 60
    ClientTop = 345
    ClientWidth = 4680
    LinkTopic = "Form1"
    ScaleHeight = 3195
    ScaleWidth = 4680
    StartUpPosition = 3 'Windows Default
    Begin VB.CommandButton Command1
        Caption = "Command1"
        Height = 495
        Left = 1800
        TabIndex = 1
        Top = 1320
        Width = 1215
    End
    Begin VB.TextBox Text1
        Height = 495
        Left = 360
        TabIndex = 0
        Text = "Text1"
        Top = 240
        Width = 1215
    End
End

Attribute VB_Name = "Form1"
Attribute VB_GlobalNameSpace = False
Attribute VB_Creatable = False
Attribute VB_PredeclaredId = True
Attribute VB_Exposed = False

Private Sub Command1_Click()
    Text1.Text = "Hello World"
End Sub
Private Sub Form_Load()
    Text1.BackColor = vbBlue
End Sub