FOPEN

Syntax	FOPEN (#ch, name) or FOPEN (name)
Location	Toolkit II, THOR XVI

This function is designed to allow you to access files safely without causing errors which force a program to stop.

If the first variant of FOPEN is used, this is actually very similar to the command OPEN in operation, except that if for some reason opening the specified channel (#ch) with the specified name would cause an error, FOPEN returns the relevant error code. If the specified channel is successfully opened, then FOPEN returns 0.

By contrast, if the second variant of the command is used, where no specific channel number is used, if successful, FOPEN will return a positive number representing the number of the next available channel (ie. the number of the lowest entry in the channel table which is empty).

If a negative number is returned, this is the appropriate error number, allowing the programmer to take any necessary action (such as requesting the user to input a new file name).

Examples

ERRno = FOPEN(#3,scr_448x200a32x16)
Chan = FOPEN('flp1_Input_dat'): IF Chan>0 THEN INPUT #Chan,x

NOTE 1

All versions of this command (other than v2.28 of Toolkit II or later) can be confused by filenames which exceed 36 characters, in which case FOPEN will return 0. On later versions, FOPEN supports 41 character filenames (including any default directory).

NOTE 2

Although FOPEN opens a file for both reading and writing, it will only return an error if the file does not already exist or is in use. It does not check whether the file is read only. Use FOP_NEW or DMEDIUM_RDONLY for this. If you do not check whether the file is read only, an error will only be reported if you try to write to the file!!

CROSS-REFERENCE

ERNUM contains details of the various error messages. WHEN ERRor allows you to error trap a complete program. Also see FOP_DIR, FOP_IN, FOP_OVER and FOP_NEW. Also see OPEN. FTEST allows you to test the status of a file without (explicitly) opening a channel.