ShellFolderItem.ExtendedProperty method
Gets the value of a property from an item's property set. The property can be specified either by name or by the property set's format identifier (FMTID) and property identifier (PID).
Syntax
retVal = ShellFolderItem.ExtendedProperty(
sPropName
)
Parameters
-
sPropName [in]
-
Type: BSTR
A String value that specifies the property. See the Remarks section for details.
Return value
Type: Variant*
When this method returns, contains the value of the property, if it exists for the specified item. The value will have full typing—for example, dates are returned as dates, not strings.
This method returns a zero-length string if the property is valid but does not exist for the specified item, or an error code otherwise.
Remarks
There are two ways to specify a property. The first is to assign the property's well-known name, such as "Author" or "Date", to sPropName. However, each property is a member of a Component Object Model (COM) property set and can also be identified by specifying its format ID (FMTID) and property ID (PID). An FMTID is a GUID that identifies the property set, and a PID is an integer that identifies a particular property within the property set.
Specifying a property by its FMTID/PID values is usually more efficient than using its name. To use a property's FMTID/PID values with ExtendedProperty, they must be combined into an SCID. An SCID is a string that contains the FMTID/PID values in the form "FMTID**PID", where the FMTID is the string form of the property set's GUID. For example, the SCID of the summary information property set's author property is "{F29F85E0-4FF9-1068-AB91-08002B27B3D9} 4".
For a list of FMTIDs and PIDs that are currently supported by the Shell, see SHCOLUMNID.
Examples
This sample code illustrates how to use ExtendedProperty to retrieve the "Title" and "Author" properties from a Word document. Once you have the ShellFolderItem object associated with the file, fiWordDoc in this example, retrieve the property's value by passing its name to ExtendedProperty.
...
Doc_Title=fiWordDoc.ExtendedProperty("DocTitle")
Doc_Author=fiWordDoc.ExtendedProperty("Author")
...
A faster and more efficient approach is to pass an SCID to ExtendedProperty.
...
FMTID_SummaryInfo="{F29F85E0-4FF9-1068-AB91-08002B27B3D9}"
PID_TITLE="2"
PID_AUTHOR="4"
SCID_TITLE=FMTID_SummaryInfo+" "+PID_TITLE
SCID_AUTHOR=FMTID_SummaryInfo+" "+PID_AUTHOR
Doc_Title=fiWordDoc.ExtendedProperty(SCID_TITLE)
Doc_Author=fiWordDoc.ExtendedProperty(SCID_AUTHOR)
...
The following examples show the proper usage of this method for JScript, VBScript, and Visual Basic.
JScript:
<script language="JScript">
function fnFolderItem2ExtendedPropertyJ()
{
var objShell = new ActiveXObject("shell.application");
var objFolder2;
var ssfWINDOWS = 36;
objFolder2 = objShell.NameSpace(ssfWINDOWS);
if (objFolder2 != null)
{
var objFolderItem;
objFolderItem = objFolder2.ParseName("NOTEPAD.EXE");
if (objFolderItem != null)
{
var szReturn = "";
szReturn = objFolderItem.ExtendedProperty("infotip");
alert(szReturn);
}
}
}
</script>
VBScript:
<script language="VBScript">
function fnFolderItemExtendedPropertyVB()
dim objShell
set objShell = CreateObject("shell.application")
if (not objShell is nothing) then
dim objFolder2
dim ssfWINDOWS
ssfWINDOWS = 36
set objFolder2 = objShell.NameSpace(ssfWINDOWS)
if (not objFolder2 is nothing) then
dim objFolderItem
set objFolderItem = objFolder2.Self
if (not objFolderItem is nothing) then
dim szReturn
szReturn = objFolderItem.ExtendedProperty("type")
alert(szReturn)
end if
set objFolderItem = nothing
end if
set objFolder2 = nothing
end if
set objShell = nothing
end function
</script>
Visual Basic:
Private Sub fnFolderItem2ExtendedPropertyVB()
Dim objShell As Shell
Dim objFolder2 As Folder2
Dim ssfWINDOWS As Long
ssfWINDOWS = 36
Set objShell = New Shell
Set objFolder2 = objShell.NameSpace(ssfWINDOWS)
If (Not objFolder2 Is Nothing) Then
Dim objFolderItem2 As Object
Set objFolderItem2 = objFolder2.ParseName("NOTEPAD.EXE")
If (Not objFolderItem2 Is Nothing) Then
Dim szReturn As String
szReturn = objFolderItem2.ExtendedProperty("size")
Debug.Print szReturn
Else
'FolderItem object returned nothing.
End If
Set objFolderItem2 = Nothing
Else
'Folder object returned nothing.
End If
Set objFolder2 = Nothing
Set objShell = Nothing
End Sub
Requirements
| Requirement | Value |
|---|---|
| Minimum supported client |
Windows 2000 Professional [desktop apps only] |
| Minimum supported server |
Windows 2000 Server [desktop apps only] |
| Header |
|
| IDL |
|
| DLL |
|