Legacy:Functions/Files

Files

• Sphere File object is a handle to an INI-like key=value structured text file.
• Sphere RawFile object is a handle to a raw file with no inference as to structure and by default processes as binary; scripts have been written to process RawFiles according to their proper formats.
• OpenFile(filename): Returns a Sphere File object with the filename.
• OpenRawFile(filename [, writeable]): Open or create a file, and grab a RawFile handle to it.

File object

• File.read(key, default): reads a value from the key; the value type returned depends on the default value:
  • if the default is a number, read will return a number.
  • if the default is a text or string, read will return a string.
  • if the default is a boolean, read will return a boolean
  • if the key is not present in the file, it will return the default value.
• File.write(key, value): writes a value (string, number, boolean) to the file under the key name
• File.flush(): writes the file to disk immediately; this way you don't have to wait for it to save when the file object is garbage collected
• File.close(): closes the File object, after which it cannot be used anymore.

  Always remember to close opened files.

File keys

• File.getNumKeys(): returns the number of keys in the file
• File.getKey(index): returns a string of the key at 'index'

RawFile object

• RawFile.read(num_bytes): Read num_bytes from the file, and return that data as a ByteArray.
• RawFile.write(byte_array): Write the data in byte_array into the file.
• RawFile.close(): Close (and flush) the RawFile object.

Size

• RawFile.getSize(): Get the size of the file in bytes.

File pointer position

• RawFile.getPosition(): Get the current position which the data is read from.
• RawFile.setPosition(position): Set the position that the file will be read from.

Hashing raw files

• HashFromFile(filename): Generate the MD5 'fingerprint' of a file. Identical files produce the same MD5 hash.