OpenTextFile Method

Description

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.OpenTextFile(filename[, iomode[, create[, format]]])

The OpenTextFile method has these parts:

Part	Description
object	Required. Always the name of a FileSystemObject.
filename	Required. String expression that identifies the file to open.
iomode	Optional. Indicates input/output mode. Can be one of three constants: ForReading, ForWriting, or ForAppending.
create	Optional. Boolean value that indicates whether a new file can be created if the specified filename doesn't exist. The value is True if a new file is created; False if it isn't created. The default is False.
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 either 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 only. You can't read from this file.
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 using the system default.
TristateTrue	-1	Opens the file as Unicode.
TristateFalse	0	Opens the file as ASCII.

Remarks

The following code illustrates the use of the OpenTextFile method to open a file for writing text:

Sub OpenTextFileTest
  Const ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2, ForAppending = 8
  Dim fso, f
  Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
  Set f = fso.OpenTextFile("c:\testfile.txt", ForWriting, True)
  f.Write "Hello world!"
  f.Close
End Sub