OpenAsTextStream method

  • Article

Opens a specified file and returns a TextStream object that can be used to read from, write to, or append to the file.

Syntax

object.OpenAsTextStream ([ iomode, [ format ]])

The OpenAsTextStream method syntax has these parts:

Part Description
object Required. Always the name of a File object.
iomode Optional. Indicates input/output mode. Can be one of three constants: ForReading, ForWriting, or ForAppending.
format Optional. One of three Tristate values used to indicate the format of the opened file. If omitted, the file is opened as ASCII.

Settings

The iomode argument can have any of the following settings:

Constant Value Description
ForReading 1 Open a file for reading only. You can't write to this file.
ForWriting 2 Open a file for writing. If a file with the same name exists, its previous contents are overwritten.
ForAppending 8 Open a file and write to the end of the file.

The format argument can have any of the following settings:

Constant Value Description
TristateUseDefault -2 Opens the file by using the system default.
TristateTrue -1 Opens the file as Unicode.
TristateFalse 0 Opens the file as ASCII.

Remarks

The OpenAsTextStream method provides the same functionality as the OpenTextFile method of the FileSystemObject. In addition, the OpenAsTextStream method can be used to write to a file.

The following code illustrates the use of the OpenAsTextStream method:

Sub TextStreamTest
    Const ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2, ForAppending = 8
    Const TristateUseDefault = -2, TristateTrue = -1, TristateFalse = 0
    Dim fs, f, ts, s
    Set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
    fs.CreateTextFile "test1.txt"            'Create a file
    Set f = fs.GetFile("test1.txt")
    Set ts = f.OpenAsTextStream(ForWriting, TristateUseDefault)
    ts.Write "Hello World"
    ts.Close
    Set ts = f.OpenAsTextStream(ForReading, TristateUseDefault)
    s = ts.ReadLine
    MsgBox s
    ts.Close
End Sub

See also

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