How To Delete a File into the Win95 Recycle Bin

• Standard, Professional, and Enterprise Editions of Microsoft Visual Basic, 16-bit and 32-bit, for Windows, version 4.0

SUMMARY

This article describes how to use the Visual Basic function called KILL to enable a user to delete a file from disk. Under Windows 95, there is an additional feature of deleting files into the Recycle bin, giving a user the ability to reclaim deleted files. The KILL function doesn't offer this to the Visual Basic Programmer, but the SHFileOperation Win32 API does. Below is a code sample showing how to use the API in Visual Basic.

MORE INFORMATION

1. Start a new project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.

2. Place a Command button on Form1.

3. Add the following code to the Form1 code window:

   Option Explicit

   Private Type SHFILEOPSTRUCT

        hwnd As Long
        wFunc As Long
        pFrom As String
        pTo As String
        fFlags As Integer
        fAnyOperationsAborted As Boolean
        hNameMappings As Long
        lpszProgressTitle As String
   

   End Type

      Private Declare Function SHFileOperation Lib "shell32.dll" Alias _
        "SHFileOperationA" (lpFileOp As SHFILEOPSTRUCT) As Long
      Private Declare Function GetTempFileName Lib "kernel32" _
        Alias "GetTempFileNameA" (ByVal lpszPath As String, _
        ByVal lpPrefixString As String, ByVal wUnique As Long, _
        ByVal lpTempFileName As String) As Long
   
      Private Const FO_DELETE = &H3
      Private Const FOF_ALLOWUNDO = &H40
   
      Sub Command1_Click()
        Dim FileOperation As SHFILEOPSTRUCT
        Dim lReturn As Long
        Dim sTempFilename As String * 100
        Dim sSendMeToTheBin As String
        lReturn = GetTempFileName("c:\", "VB_", 0, sTempFilename)
        sSendMeToTheBin = Left(sTempFilename, InStr(sTempFilename, Chr$(0)))
        With FileOperation
           .wFunc = FO_DELETE
           .pFrom = sSendMeToTheBin
           .fFlags = FOF_ALLOWUNDO
        End With
        lReturn = SHFileOperation(FileOperation)
        MsgBox "View your Recycle Bin for files beginning with VB_"
      End Sub
   
   

4. Press the F5 key to run the project, and click the Command button. You will be prompted to confirm the deletion of the file. In your Recycle Bin, there will be a file with the prefix "VB_" that is the file created by the GetTempFileName Win32 API call.

REFERENCES

The Win32 SDK Helpfile refers to other SHFileOperation functionality.