How can I sanitize a string for use as a filename?

Question

I\'ve got a routine that converts a file into a different format and saves it. The original datafiles were numbered, but my routine gives the output a filename based on an

Answer 1

Check if string has invalid chars; solution from here:

//test if a "fileName" is a valid Windows file name
//Delphi >= 2005 version

function IsValidFileName(const fileName : string) : boolean;
const 
  InvalidCharacters : set of char = ['\', '/', ':', '*', '?', '"', '<', '>', '|'];
var
  c : char;
begin
  result := fileName <> '';

  if result then
  begin
    for c in fileName do
    begin
      result := NOT (c in InvalidCharacters) ;
      if NOT result then break;
    end;
  end;
end; (* IsValidFileName *)

And, for strings returning False, you could do something simple like this for each invalid character:

var
  before, after : string;

begin
  before := 'i am a rogue file/name';

  after  := StringReplace(before, '/', '',
                      [rfReplaceAll, rfIgnoreCase]);
  ShowMessage('Before = '+before);
  ShowMessage('After  = '+after);
end;

// Before = i am a rogue file/name
// After  = i am a rogue filename