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This article is brought to you by Premier Press publisher of John Gosney's ASP Programming for the Absolute Beginner. |
Working with the TextStream Object
The TextStream object is the heart of most of the file manipulation in ASP 3.0. There are three specific methods within the TextStream object: CreateTextFile, OpenTextFile, and OpenAsTextStream.
The TextStream object has its own set of properties and methods. First, the properties:
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AtEndOfLine. Returns a value of True if the file pointer (the location of the response as the file is read) is at the end of a line in the file
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AtEndOfStream. Returns a value of True if the file pointer is at the end of the file
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Column. Depending on the current character being read within the file, returns the column number of this character, starting from 1
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Line. Depending on the current line number being read within the file, returns this line number, starting from 1
And now, the methods of the TextStream object:
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Close. Closes an open file.
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Read (a number). Reads a specific number of characters from the file. For example, Read(20) reads the first 20 characters within the file being examined.
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ReadAll(). Reads the entire file and places it within a text string.
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ReadLine(). Reads a single line from the file and places it within a text string.
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Skip (a number). Skips over a specific set of characters from the file being examined.
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SkipLine. Skips a line when reading from the file being examined.
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Write (a string). Writes a specified string to the file being examined.
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WriteLine (a string). Writes a string to the file being examined and then writes a newline character within the file.
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WriteBlankLines(a number). Writes the specified number of blank lines to the file being examined.
The following is an example of the TextStream object in action. Note the location of where you create the file will vary (as well as the name of the actual text file: in this example, it is called "Test2File.txt"), depending on your particular server configuration.
<html>
<title>Working with the File Object</title>
<body>
<b>An example of working with the File object!</b>
<hr>
<%
set TestFile=Server.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
set TFileStream= TestFile.CreateTextFile(
"c:\inetpub\wwwroot\ASP_Examples\Test2File.txt")
TFileStream.WriteLine "Welcome to the File Object in ASP!"
TFileStream.WriteBlankLines(3)
TFileStream.WriteLine "Between this line and the opening line are three
blank lines. These blank lines were inserted using the
WriteLine method of the TextStream object. Now, let's
write three more blank lines before the next section of
text is inserted."
TFileStream.WriteBlankLines(3)
TFileStream.WriteLine "Okay, that's better-three more
blank lines have just been inserted! I think you probably
get the idea of how to use the WriteLine method, so let's
move on to more interesting things."
TFileStream.Close
%>
</body>
</html>
After the page loads, the Test2File.txt file is created. Navigate to the location of this file -- it should look something like this (all the text you asked to be inserted, including the blank lines is included within this file).
The information you write to a text file doesn't have to be
static text. You can define and assign specific values to variables and then, as a result of your own code processing, insert
dynamic values into the text files. For example, you ask visitors to your Web
site to enter specific information. Then, you have your code process that
information and write the results of that processing to a text file.
