Xbasic

FILE.SEEK Function

Syntax

V file_pointer.Seek(N Position)

Arguments

PositionNumeric

The position in the file to start reading data.

Description

Set the position in the file.

Discussion

The .SEEK() method sets the position of the file pointer to a Byte Offset (measured in bytes) in relation to the beginning of the file specified by the file object pointer. This function is used to read and write data at a particular location in a data file.

Example

This script will change four characters in the Defaults file. The old text "VAR3" will be changed to the new text "XXXX".

file_pointer = FILE.open("c:\a5\defaults.txt", FILE_RW_SHARED)

Read the third group of 4 characters.

file_pointer.seek(8)
text = file_pointer.read(4)
trace.writeln("Old value: " + text)

Write the four characters at the same position.

file_pointer.seek(8)
file_pointer.write("XXXX")

Read the third group of 4 characters to see the change.

file_pointer.seek(8)
text = file_pointer.read(4)
trace.writeln("New value: " + text)
file_pointer.close()

See Also