Monkeybread Software - MBS FileMaker Plugin: Files.ReadFile

Topics All Mac OS X (Only) Windows (Only) Linux (Only, Not) iOS (Only, Not)
Components Crossplatform Mac & Win Server Client Old Guides Examples
New in version: 8.4 8.5 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 10.0 10.1 Statistic

Files.ReadFile

Reads a file with the given path.

Component	Version	macOS	Windows	Server	FileMaker Cloud	FileMaker iOS SDK
Files	3.5	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes

MBS( "Files.ReadFile"; FilePath { ; mode; filename } ) More

Parameters

Parameter Description Example value

FilePath The native file path. Something like "/Users/cs/desktop/test.txt" on Mac and "C:\Programs\Data\test.txt" on Windows. Files without path end in the root directory on Mac. "test.txt"

mode Optional
Can be base64 to encode data first to base64 encoding. Or can be Hex to encode to hex encoding. If filter is "container", the result is returned as a container with a FILE stream inside. Version 5.3 supports filter "auto" to auto detect the type of container. "Base64"

filename Optional
If filter is container, this defines the file name to use. "test.txt"

Parameter	Description	Example value
FilePath	The native file path. Something like "/Users/cs/desktop/test.txt" on Mac and "C:\Programs\Data\test.txt" on Windows. Files without path end in the root directory on Mac.	"test.txt"
mode	Optional Can be base64 to encode data first to base64 encoding. Or can be Hex to encode to hex encoding. If filter is "container", the result is returned as a container with a FILE stream inside. Version 5.3 supports filter "auto" to auto detect the type of container.	"Base64"
filename	Optional If filter is container, this defines the file name to use.	"test.txt"

Result

Returns container value or error.

Description

Reads a file with the given path.
Reads the data in the file and returns as text with native encoding. This may truncate the string at the first null byte.
You can optionally define a mode like base64 or Hex to read any bytes including null bytes.
See also Text.ReadTextFile for reading text files with specific encoding.
Reading files over 1 GB is not supported.
Added new modes with version 5.3: auto, compressed, pdf, png, jpg, tif, gif, bmp or psd.

For reading simple text files, please use Text.ReadTextFile.
See also Files.ReadJPEG, Files.ReadPDF, Files.ReadPNG, Text.ReadTextFile and RichText.ReadFile.

For PDF content: If you have a DynaPDF Pro license and DynaPDF functions initialized, this function can add previews for the PDF file on Windows and Linux. For MacOS, we make them with PDFKit.

This function requires a native path. Use Path.FileMakerPathToNativePath to convert a FileMaker path to a native path if required. If you like to have the user choose the path, you can use FileDialog functions.
For Server be aware that server has limited permissions and may not be able to access all files on a computer.

Examples

Read file with some data:

MBS("Files.ReadFile"; $Path )

Read file with some data and encode base64:

MBS("Files.ReadFile"; "/Users/cs/Desktop/test.txt"; "base64")

Read as compressed container:

Set Field [Container Compression::SomeContainer; MBS("Files.ReadFile"; "/Users/cs/Desktop/test.jpg"; "compressed"; "test.jpg")]

Read file on Server:

MBS( "Files.ReadFile"; "C:\Programs\FileMaker Server\Data\Documents\test.pdf")

Example Databases

Blog Entries

Created 18th August 2014, last changed 17th August 2018

Files.MoveToTrash - Files.ReadJPEG

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