ScriptForge.TextStream service

The TextStream service is used to sequentially read from and write to files opened or created using the ScriptForge.FileSystem service. The methods OpenTextFile and CreateTextFile from the FileSystem service return an instance of the TextStream service.

Line delimiters may be specified by the user. In input operations CR, LF or CR+LF are supported. In output operations, the default line delimiter is the one used by the operating system. The line delimiter for the operating system where the macro is being executed can be accessed using the SF_String.sfNEWLINE property. All operations needed to read from or write to a file (open, read/write and close) are presumed to happen during the same macro run.

Service instantiation

The code snippet below uses the OpenTextFile method to create an instance of the TextStream Service. GlobalScope.BasicLibraries.LoadLibrary("ScriptForge") Dim FSO As Variant FSO = CreateScriptService("FileSystem") Set myFile = FSO.OpenTextFile("C:\Temp\ThisFile.txt", FSO.ForReading) The file must be closed with the CloseFile method after all read or write operations have been executed: myFile.CloseFile() Optionally, the resources used by the TextStream instance can be released using the Dispose method: Set myFile = myFile.Dispose() The methods in the TextStream service are mostly based on the XTextInputStream and XTextOutputStream UNO interfaces.

Properties

TextStream service;AtEndOfStream TextStream service;Encoding TextStream service;FileName TextStream service;IOMode TextStream service;Line TextStream service;NewLine Name Readonly Type Description AtEndOfStream Yes Boolean Used in read mode. A True value indicates that the end of the file has been reached. A test using this property should precede calls to the ReadLine method. Encoding Yes String The character set to be used. The default encoding is "UTF-8". FileName Yes String Returns the name of the current file either in URL format or in the native operating system's format, depending on the current value of the FileNaming property of the FileSystem service. IOMode Yes String Indicates the input/output mode. Possible values are "READ", "WRITE" or "APPEND". Line Yes Long Returns the number of lines read or written so far. NewLine No String Sets or returns the current delimiter to be inserted between two successive written lines. The default value is the native line delimiter in the current operating system.

To learn more about the names of character sets, visit IANA's Character Set page. Beware that %PRODUCTNAME does not implement all existing character sets. List of Methods in the TextStream Service CloseFile
ReadAll
ReadLine
SkipLine
WriteBlankLines
WriteLine

CloseFile -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TextStream service;CloseFile

CloseFile

Closes the current input or output stream and empties the output buffer if relevant. Returns True if the file was successfully closed.

myFile.CloseFile() As Boolean

ReadAll -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TextStream service;ReadAll

ReadAll

Returns all the remaining lines in the text stream as a single string. Line breaks are not removed. The resulting string can be split in lines either by using the Split built-in Basic function if the line delimiter is known, or with the SF_String.SplitLines method. For large files, using the ReadAll method wastes memory resources. In such cases it is recommended to read the file line by line using the ReadLine method.

myFile.ReadAll() As String

Consider the text file "Students.txt" with the following contents (a name in each line): Herbie Peggy Hardy Jarrett Edith Lorelle Roderick Rosamund Placid Everette The example below uses the ReadAll and SplitLines methods to read the contents of the file into an array of strings: Sub ReadFile_Example 'Loads the FileSystem service Dim FSO : FSO = CreateScriptService("FileSystem") 'Opens the text file with the names to be read Dim inputFile as Object Set inputFile = FSO.OpenTextFile("~/Documents/Students.txt") 'Reads all the contents in the input file as a single string Dim allData as String allData = inputFile.ReadAll() 'Splits the string into an array Dim arrNames as Variant arrNames = SF_String.SplitLines(allData) ' (...) inputFile.CloseFile() End Sub

ReadLine -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TextStream service;ReadLine

ReadLine

Returns the next line in the text stream as a string. Line breaks are removed from the returned string. The AtEndOfStream test should precede the ReadLine method like in the example below. An error will be raised if the AtEndOfStream was reached during the previous ReadLine or SkipLine method call.

myFile.ReadLine() As String

Dim sLine As String Do While Not myFile.AtEndOfStream sLine = myFile.ReadLine() ' (...) Loop

SkipLine -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TextStream service;SkipLine

SkipLine

Skips the next line in the input stream when reading a TextStream file. This method can result in AtEndOfStream being set to True.

myFile.SkipLine()

WriteBlankLines -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TextStream service;WriteBlankLines

WriteBlankLines

Writes a specified number of empty lines to the output stream.

myFile.WriteBlankLines(Lines As Long)

Lines: The number of empty lines to write.

WriteLine -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TextStream service;WriteLine

WriteLine

Writes the given string to the output stream as a single line. The character defined in the NewLine property is used as the line delimiter.

myFile.WriteLine(Line As String)

Line: The line to write, may be empty.

Sub SquaredValuesFile(lastValue as Integer) 'Instantiates the FileSystem Service Dim FSO as Variant : FSO = CreateScriptService("FileSystem") 'Creates a text file Dim myFile as Variant : myFile = FSO.CreateTextFile("~/Documents/squares.csv") 'Writes the Value and Value squared, separated by ";" Dim value as Integer myFile.WriteLine("Value;Value Squared") For value = 1 To lastValue myFile.WriteLine(value & ";" & value ^ 2) Next value 'Closes the file and free resources myFile.CloseFile() myFile.Dispose() End Sub

Input Function Open Statement