Traditional Visual Basic File Management

Visual Basic has included significant file management features since its first release. In fact, there are more features in Visual Basic that deal with file and directory manipulation than with pretty much anything else.

Most of the functions that allow you to read and modify file content use a file handle, a numeric identifier that refers to a specific open file. This file handle is generated with the FreeFile function, and must be obtained before calling any of the traditional Visual Basic file features.

Dim fileID As Integer fileID = FreeFile() FileOpen(fileID, "C:\TestData.txt", OpenMode.Append) PrintLine(fileID, "Important output to file.") FileClose(fileID) 

File handle-based file manipulation works just fine, but it is so early-'90s. It's not really a .NET technology, and is not object-based at all (unless you consider that an Integer is an object). Therefore, we won't be covering it in this book, or using it in the Library Project. Table 15-1 lists the major Visual Basic features that use file handles. If you need to know about the handle-based features in Visual Basic, or if your work involves migrating pre-.NET Visual Basic applications, use this table to help you locate full feature details in the technical documentation supplied with Visual Basic.

Table 15-1. Visual Basic Features That Use File Handles

Feature	Description
EOF	Returns a Boolean indicating whether the current position in the file is at or past the end of the file. Use this function to determine when to stop reading existing data from a file.
FileAttr	Indicates the file attributes currently set on an open file handle.
FileClose	Closes a specific file opened using a file handle.
FileGet	Retrieves structured data from a file and stores it in a matching object.
FileGetObject	Same as FileGet, but with slightly different data typing support.
FileOpen	Opens a file for input or output.
FilePut	Writes an object to a file in a structured manner.
FilePutObject	Same as FilePut, but with slightly different data typing support.
FileWidth	Sets the default line width for formatted text output files.
FreeFile	Returns the next available file handle.
Input	Retrieves a value previously written to a file using Write or WriteLine.
InputString	Retrieves a specific number of characters from an input file.
LineInput	Returns a complete line of input from a file.
Loc	Returns the current byte or record location in the file.
Lock	Locks a file or specific records in a file so that others cannot make changes.
LOF	Returns the length of an open file, in bytes.
Print	Sends text output to a file.
PrintLine	Sends text output to a file, ending it with a line terminator.
Reset	Closes all files currently opened with file handles.
Seek	Gets or sets the current position in a file.
SPC	This function helps format text for output to columnar text files.
TAB	This function helps format text for output to columnar text files.
Unlock	Removes locks previously set with Lock.
Write	Writes data to a file using a consistent format that can be easily read later.
WriteLine	Same as Write, but ends the output with a line terminator.