delphi file search multithreading

Here you can find an article about the background file scanner implemented with OmniThreadLibrary.

You can put the file scanning stuff into a thread and whenver work is finished send a windows message to the main form, which then updates the list box (code not tested, take it as pseudo code):

const   WM_FILESEARCH_FINISHED = WM_USER + 1;TFileSearchThread = class (TThread)private  FPath       : String;  FFileNames  : TStringList;protected  procedure Execute; override;public  constructor Create (const Path : String);  destructor Destroy; override;  property FileNames : TStrings read FFileNames;end;constructor TFileSearchThread.Create (const Path : String);begin  inherited Create (True);  FPath := Path;  FFileNames := TStringList.Create;end;destructor TFileSearchThread.Destroy;begin  FreeAndNil (FFileNames);  inherited;end;procedure TFileSearchThread.Execute;  begin  // do your file search here, adding each file to FFileNames  PostMessage (MainForm.Handle, WM_FILESEARCH_FINISHED, 0, 0);end;

You could use it like this:

Thead := TFileSearchThread.Create (Path);Thread.Start;

and the main form would have a message handler like this:

type  TMainForm = class(TForm)    ListBox1: TListBox;  private    procedure WMFileSearchFinished (var Msg : TMessage); message WM_FILESEARCH_FINISHED;  public    { Public declarations }  end;implementationprocedure TMainForm.WMFileSearchFinished (var Msg : TMessage);begin  ListBox1.Items.AddStrings (Thread.FileNames);end;