File I/O Functions

Statements and procedures for working with files and devices.

Description
   These statements and procedures provide file and device i/o 
   capabilities. So called file numbers can be bound to files or devices, 
   which can be read or written to using formatted (text mode) or 
   unformatted (binary mode) data. In binary mode, files and devices can be 
   read from or written to in arbitrary locations. For multithreaded 
   applications, files and devices can also be locked.

Opening Files or Devices
   Procedures and other keywords that provide read or write access to a 
   file or device.
Reading from and Writing to Files or Devices
   Procedures that read and write data to an opened file or device.
File Position and other Info
   Procedures that determine where reading and writing will take place 
   within an opened file.

Opening Files or Devices
   FreeFile
      Gets an available file number that can be used to read or write from 
      files or devices.
   Open
      Binds a file number to a physical file to provide reading and writing 
      capabilities.
   Open Com
      Binds a file number to a communications port.
   Open Cons
      Binds a file number to the standard input and output streams.
   Open Err
      Binds a file number to the standard input and error streams.
   Open Lpt
      Binds a file number to a printer device.
   Open Pipe
      Binds a file number to the input and output streams of a process.
   Open Scrn
      Binds a file number directly to the console.
   Close
      Unbinds a file number from a file or device.
   Reset
      Unbinds all active file numbers.

   File I/O modes
      Input (File Mode)
         Text data can be read from the file.
      Output
         Text data can be written to the file.
      Append
         Text data is added to the end of a file when output.
      Binary
         Arbitrary data can be read from or written to the file.
      Random
         Blocks of data of certain size can be read from and written to the 
         file.

   File access privileges
      Access
         An overview of file access privileges.
      Read (File Access)
         Binary data can only be read from the file.
      Write (File Access)
         Binary data can only be written to the file.
      Read Write(File Access)
         Binary data can be read from and written to the file.

   Character encoding
      Encoding
         Specifies the character encoding of a file.
Reading from and Writing to Files or Devices
   Input #
      Reads a list of values from a file or device.
   Write #
      Writes a list of values to a file or device.
   Input()
      Reads a number of characters from a file or device.
   Winput()
      Reads a number of wide characters from a file or device.
   Line Input #
      Reads a line of text from a file or device.
   Print #
   ? # (Shortcut For 'Print #')
      Writes text data to a file or device.
   Put #
      Writes arbitrary data to a file or device.
   Get #
      Reads arbitrary data from a file or device.

File Position and other Info
   LOF
      Gets the length (in bytes) of a file.
   LOC
      Gets the file position of the last read or write operation.
   EOF
      Returns true if all of the data has been read from a file.
   Seek (Statement)
      Sets the file position of the next read or write operation.
   Seek (Function)
      Gets the file position of the next read or write operation.
   Lock
      Restricts read or write access to a file or portion of a file.
   Unlock
      Remove read or write restrictions from a previous Lock command.

