WRITEFILE

The _WRITEFILE statement writes a string into a new file, overwriting an existing file of the same name. It does OPEN, PUT and CLOSE the file in one run. It's the counterpart to the _READFILE$ function.

Syntax

_WRITEFILE fileSpec$, contents$

Parameters

• fileSpec$ is the name of the file to write as literal or variable STRING, if required inclusive a full or relative path.
  • To avoid errors you should use _DIREXISTS before using this statement to make sure a desired path exists.
• contents$ is the literal or variable STRING which its contents shall be written into the file.

Description

• Sometimes you may be in need to quickly dump a huge amount of data into a file without much fuss, e.g. the results of the pack/unpack functions _DEFLATE$ and _INFLATE$ or when copying a file in conjunction with the _READFILE$ function.
• In earlier versions of QB64(PE) you had to implement that saving process manually all the time or create a reusable custom FUNCTION for it.
• Now _WRITEFILE will simplify this, it's mainly for convenience to wrap the following code sequence into one handy statement:

fh = FREEFILE OPEN fileSpec$ FOR OUTPUT AS #fh: CLOSE #fh OPEN fileSpec$ FOR BINARY AS #fh PUT #fh, , contents$ CLOSE #fh

Availability

• 

  none

• 

  v3.12.0

• 
• 

  yes

• 

  yes

• 

  yes

Examples

Example

Implementing a simple file copy routine using _READFILE$ and _WRITEFILE.

s$ = "Makefile" d$ = "Makefile - Copy" r$ = CopyFile$(s$, d$) IF r$ = "" THEN PRINT "Sucessfully copied '"; s$; "' to '"; d$; "'." ELSE PRINT r$ END IF END FUNCTION CopyFile$ (src$, dst$) CopyFile$ = "" 'empty = success, otherwise error message buffer$ = _READFILE$(src$) IF buffer$ = "" AND _FILEEXISTS(src$) = 0 THEN CopyFile$ = "ERROR: Source file not found." ELSE slp% = _INSTRREV(dst$, "\") IF slp% = 0 THEN slp% = _INSTRREV(dst$, "/") IF slp% > 0 THEN IF NOT _DIREXISTS(LEFT$(dst$, slp% - 1)) THEN CopyFile$ = "ERROR: Destination path not found." EXIT FUNCTION END IF END IF _WRITEFILE dst$, buffer$ END IF END FUNCTION

Example by RhoSigma

See also

• Featured in our "Keyword of the Day" series
• _READFILE$, BLOAD, BSAVE
• _DEFLATE$, _INFLATE$

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