vba search part of a file name to see if file exists?

Question

I have several text files (.txt) all called "Log" followed by a date like so (11-2014) and a random number like "34450"

so my folder directory (P:) looks like:

Log (11-2014) 12234.txt
Log (10-2014) 45546.txt
Log (08-2014) 686868.txt
Log (11-2014) 343434.txt

what I want to do is use vba code to count all occurrences where the log files contain the same month and year of todays date.

so today's month is 11 and todays year is 2014

so I want to count all log files where the date bit of the file name "(11-2014)" matches the month and year of the current date/today's date.

here's what I've tried but it doesn't work, I keep getting "found" even when the file doesn't exist, please could someone show me what im doing wrong?

 Dim iMonth As Integer
    Dim iYear As Integer

    Dim target As String
    iMonth = Month(Date)
    iYear = Year(Date)

    thefile = "P:\Log *(" & iMonth & "-" & iYear & ")"
    If thefile > 0 Then

    MsgBox "Found"

    Else

    MsgBox "Not"

    End If

Answer 1

you can use Left or InStr function to find if a substring is part of another string

dim logName as string, logNameToFind as string 
if Left(logName, Len(logNameTofind)) = LogNameToFind then 
      MsgBox "Found"
end if  

or

dim logName as string, logNameToFind as string 
if InStr(logName, logNameToFind) = 1 then 
   MsgBox "Found"
End if 

where logName is the file name found on disk and logNameToFind is the pattern you are looking for.

To get all the files from a directory use Dir function

Answer 2

You can use the below function to fill an array with all the files matching your pattern, then use
UBound(myArray) to get a count.

Private Function GetFileList(FileSpec As String) As Variant
'   Returns an array of filenames that match FileSpec
'   If no matching files are found, it returns False

    Dim FileArray() As Variant
    Dim FileCount As Integer
    Dim FileName As String

    On Error GoTo NoFilesFound

    FileCount = 0
    FileName = Dir(FileSpec)
    If FileName = "" Then GoTo NoFilesFound

    'Loop until no more matching files are found
    Do While FileName <> ""
        FileCount = FileCount + 1
        ReDim Preserve FileArray(1 To FileCount)
        FileArray(FileCount) = FileName
        FileName = Dir()
    Loop
    GetFileList = FileArray
    Exit Function

NoFilesFound:
    GetFileList = False
End Function