File
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In a Pascal program a variable of type file may be used to read, write or both read and write to a file. A file variable is (usually) associated with a file on a disk using the AssignFile procedure (older, equivalent name: just Assign). (See File Handling In Pascal for a more object oriented approach and more examples.)
File types
Untyped binary
The type file represents an untyped binary file. Untyped means it's just a sequence of data (bytes). It may be used to store essentially anything. It can be read by BlockRead and written to by BlockWrite procedures. The word file itself is a reserved word in Pascal. Example:
{$mode objfpc}{$H+}
var
MyFile: file;
Data: array [0..99] of Byte;
begin
AssignFile(MyFile, 'a');
Reset(MyFile, 1 { size of read chunk });
try
BlockRead(MyFile, Data, SizeOf(Data));
finally
CloseFile(MyFile);
end;
end.
For larger example code, see BlockRead documentation.
Typed binary
The type file of <type>, where <type> is any simple type (no references/pointers) or record type, is a binary file representing a sequence of <type> values. For example, you can have files that are a sequence of integers, floating-point values, or records (as long as all record fields are also simple types).
{$mode objfpc}{$H+}
var
MyFile: file of Single;
Data: Single;
begin
AssignFile(MyFile, 'singlevalues.bin');
try
Reset(MyFile);
Read(MyFile, Data);
finally
CloseFile(MyFile);
end;
end.
Text file
The type TextFile (older, equivalent name: Text) represents a text file. Note that this is different than just file of char. There are various comfortable read and write operations available for text files, that parse integers, floating-point values and other types. Also, line endings are properly dealt with when you use text files.
See TextFile page for more information and examples.
Working with files
Working with all file types is similar:
- Associate a file with data. Usually by calling AssignFile. An older, equivalent name is Assign. (With the advent of GUI libraries there arose the possibility of name clashes with the names of some traditional Pascal file routines. TPersistent and TForm (a TPersistent descendent) have Assign and Close methods. Because of this, confusion can arise if you write Assign or Close in TForm methods, hence AssignFile and CloseFile were introduced as aliases for the traditional Assign and Close, to prevent inadvertently calling an unintended procedure. In non-GUI code you may of course use the original Assign and Close, and save a bit of typing).
- Open the file by Reset (read existing file, and maybe write --- see below), Rewrite (clear contents and write), or Append (keep contents and write). In case of Reset on an untyped binary file, the global FileMode variable determines if you can only read (fmOpenRead), or both read and write (fmOpenReadWrite), to the file.
- Then read/write file data by read, readln, write and writeln standard procedures. Some Pascal Compilers also used the Get and Put routines for I/O. For untyped binary files, use BlockRead and BlockWrite.
- At the end, release the necessary file resources (and possibly flush the data to be written) by calling CloseFile (older, equivalent name: just Close).
A file variable is used either for input, for output, or for both input and output (I/O). A file may be a screen and/or keyboard, a modem, a light pen, a touch screen, a mouse, an area of storage on disk, a socket for connecting to the Internet, or it could be some other device depending on how the run-time library ties the file. In some cases, actual memory can be defined as a file; this was used in the case of a ram disk. You can customize where the file data is by initializing FileRec record (for untyped binary files) or TextRec record (for text files), instead of calling standard AssignFile (Assign) routines.
See also
File-related types, procedures and functions:
