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TrFile_SetContentsOfFile (function reference)

By June 1, 2024June 4th, 2024Online Help, Troi File Plug-in
Troi File Plug-in > Functions reference > TrFile_SetContentsOfFile
Troi File Plug-in for FileMaker Pro

TrFile_SetContentsOfFile

Sets the contents of a file.

SyntaxFunction badge

TrFile_SetContentsOfFile ( switches ; filePath ; text )

Parameters

switches these alter the behavior of the function
filePath
text the characters that you want to write in the file

Switches

Switches can be empty or one of this:

-Encoding=Native (default)
-Encoding=UTF8
-Encoding=ASCII_DOS
-Encoding=ASCII_Windows
-Encoding=ASCII_Mac
-Encoding=ISO_8859_1 (Windows Latin-1)
-Encoding=BytesOnly only characters in the range 0-255 are written, others are skipped

This determines the character encoding of the text to be written.
You can also add this switch:

-CRtoCRLF use Windows line endings. Returns in the text parameter are substituted with CRLF (Carriage Return followed by a Line Feed) in the written file

Returned Result

Data type returned

Error code

Result

The returned result is an error code. An error always starts with 2 dollars, followed by the error code. You should always check for errors. Returned error codes can be:

0 no error The string of characters was written in the file
$$-1 genericErr The file could not be opened for writing (You may need to create the file first).

Other errors may be returned.

Originated in

Troi File Plug-in 9.0

Compatibility

FileMaker Pro 17 to FileMaker Pro 21 (2024)

Considerations

See also the functions:
“TrFile_SaveFileDialog” to get a FilePath for the file
Note that the maximum size of SetContentsOfFile is currently 150 million characters which equals to about max. 600 million characters written. This depends on the encoding, for example one Unicode character encoded as UTF-8 can require up to 4 characters in the written file.
Use the TrFile_AppendContents function if you need to append more characters.

The default is -Encoding=Native, which is the current encoding as set in the system preference, for example on western Windows systems it usually is ISO_8859_1 or ASCII_Windows. On macOS the default will be ASCII_Mac. To be able to export all possible characters (like chinese characters) it is best to export with encoding UTF-8.

Example

Assume your C disk already contains a file “Testtext.txt” which is empty. We assume that a global number field gErrorCode is defined. Create the following script:

Set Field [ gErrorCode ; TrFile_SetContentsOfFile ( "-unused" ; "C:\Testtext.txt" ;  "Hello there." ) ]

This script will set the contents of the file “C:\Testtext.txt” to the text “Hello there.”.

Related functionsFunction badge

TrFile_AppendContents
TrFile_CreateFile
TrFile_SaveFileDialog
TrFile_SelectFileDialog

Related topics

Troi File Plug-in online help (overview)


Online Help Page for Troi File Plug-in for 17 to 2024 –> TrFile_SetContentsOfFile (filep4313) 2024-0604 19:32:49