Writes data to the file associated with the specified file number. The file number was assigned to the file with the FileOpen function. FileWrite is maintained for backward compatibility. Use the FileWriteEx function for new development.
File format
FileWrite can write to Unicode files in
line mode, and ANSI and Unicode files in stream mode. To write to
an ANSI file in stream mode, use the ToANSI function
to convert a Unicode character string into an ANSI blob.
FileWrite ( file#, variable )
Argument |
Description |
|---|---|
file# |
The integer assigned to the file when the file was opened |
variable |
A string or blob whose value is the data you want to write to the file |
Integer. Returns the number of characters or bytes written if it succeeds and it returns -1 if an error occurs. If any argument’s value is null, FileWrite returns null.
FileWrite writes its data at the position identified by the file pointer. If the file was opened with the writemode argument set to Replace!, the file pointer is initially at the beginning of the file. After each call to FileWrite, the pointer is immediately after the last write. If the file was opened with the writemode argument set to Append!, the file pointer is initially at the end of the file and moves to the end of the file after each write.
FileWrite sets the file pointer following the last character written. If the file was opened in line mode, FileWrite writes a carriage return (CR) and linefeed (LF) after the last character in variable and places the file pointer after the CR and LF.
Length limit
FileWrite can write only 32,766 bytes at
a time, which includes the string terminator character. If the length
of variable exceeds 32,765, FileWrite writes the
first 32,765 characters and returns 32,765.
This script excerpt opens EMP_DATA.TXT and writes the string New Employees at the end of the file. The variable li_FileNum stores the number of the opened file:
integer li_FileNum
li_FileNum = FileOpen("C:\HR\EMP_DATA.TXT", &
LineMode!, Write!, LockWrite!, Append!)
FileWrite(li_FileNum, "New Employees")
The following example reads a blob from the database and writes it to a file. The SQL SELECT statement assigns the picture data to the blob Emp_Id_Pic. Then FileOpen opens a file for writing in stream mode and FileWrite writes the blob to the file. You could use the Len function to test whether the blob was too big for a single FileWrite call:
integer li_FileNum
blob emp_id_pic
SELECTBLOB salary_hist
INTO : emp_id_pic
FROM Employee
WHERE Employee.Emp_Num = 100
USING Emp_tran;
li_FileNum = FileOpen( &
"C:\EMPLOYEE\EMP_PICS.BMP", &
StreamMode!, Write!, Shared!, Replace!)
FileWrite(li_FileNum, emp_id_pic)
