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Statistic
Text.ReadTextFile
Reads a text file.
| Component | Version | macOS | Windows | Server | FileMaker Cloud | FileMaker iOS SDK |
| Text | 2.4 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
(old name: String.ReadTextFile)
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" |
| Encoding | Optional The text encoding for result. Default is native. This function can also handle UTF-16 as well as UTF-16LE and UTF-16BE for little/big endian byte order. Possible encoding names: ANSI, Arabic-Mac, Arabic-Win, Baltic-Win, CentralEurope-Mac, ChineseSimp-Mac, ChineseSimp-Win, ChineseTrad-Mac, ChineseTrad-Win, Cyrillic-Mac, Cyrillic-Win, EasternEurope-Win, Greek-Mac, Greek-Win, Hebrew-Mac, Hebrew-Win, ISO-8859-1, ISO-8859-2, ISO-8859-3, ISO-8859-4, ISO-8859-5, ISO-8859-6, ISO-8859-7, ISO-8859-8, ISO-8859-9, ISO-8859-15, Korean-Johab, Korean-Mac, Korean-Win, Latin1, Mac, Native, ShiftJIS-Mac, ShiftJIS-Win, Turkish-Mac, Turkish-Win, UTF-8, DOS or Windows. Pass native to use the native encoding of the current platform. |
"UTF8" |
Result
Returns text on success and error on failure.
Description
Reads a text file.You have to decide which encoding to use (if not native). We support a few encodings, but we can add more if you need something special. Some characters will be wrong if the encoding is not correct.
See also Files.ReadJPEG, Files.ReadPDF, Files.ReadPNG, Files.ReadFile and RichText.ReadFile.
This function reads only up to 1 GB of text. And even than a 32-bit FileMaker may fail to allocate enough memory to handle the text.
When passing UTF-16 as encoding, we can detect byte order if there is a Byte Order Mark.
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 system.log file:
MBS("Text.ReadTextFile"; "/var/log/system.log"; "utf8")
Read Windows ANSI XML:
# read and convert to from Windows ANSI to unicode
Set Variable [$text; Value:MBS("Text.ReadTextFile"; "/Users/cs/Desktop/test.xml"; "Windows")]
# remove the encoding hint:
Set Variable [$text; Value:Substitute($text; "<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"WINDOWS-1252\"?>"; "")]
# now xml is unicode text and can be passed to XML functions.
Read file on Windows from desktop folder:
MBS( "Text.ReadTextFile"; "C:\Users\Christian\Desktop\test.txt")
Read file with UTF-16 Big Endian:
MBS( "Text.ReadTextFile"; "/Users/cs/Desktop/test.txt" ; "UTF-16BE" )
Parse in VCard with MBS functions:
# Loop over files on desktop
Set Variable [ $folder ; Value: MBS( "Folders.UserDesktop" ) ]
Set Variable [ $files ; Value: MBS( "Files.List"; $folder; 1+4; ".vcf" ) ]
If [ MBS("IsError") = 0 ]
Set Variable [ $count ; Value: ValueCount ( $files ) ]
Set Variable [ $index ; Value: 1 ]
If [ $count > 0 ]
Loop
# Read in vcard
Set Variable [ $filename ; Value: GetValue($files; $index) ]
Set Variable [ $filepath ; Value: MBS( "Path.AddPathComponent"; $folder; $filename ) ]
Set Variable [ $text ; Value: MBS( "Text.ReadTextFile"; $FilePath; "UTF-8" ) ]
If [ MBS("IsError") = 0 ]
Set Variable [ $text ; Value: MBS( "Text.ReplaceNewline"; $text; 1) ]
# Process all text lines
Set Variable [ $LineCount ; Value: ValueCount ( $text ) ]
Set Variable [ $LineIndex ; Value: 1 ]
# TODO: Create new record here
Loop
Set Variable [ $Line ; Value: GetValue($text; $lineindex) ]
If [ Left ( $line ; 2 ) = "N:" ]
# Name
Set Variable [ $z ; Value: Middle ( $line ; 3; Length ( $line )) ]
Set Variable [ $list ; Value: MBS( "List.CSVSplit"; $z ) ]
Set Variable [ $FirstName ; Value: GetValue($list; 1) ]
Set Variable [ $SureName ; Value: GetValue($list; 2) ]
Set Field [ CON::nameGiven ; $firstName ]
Set Field [ CON::nameFamily ; $sureName ]
Else If [ Left($line; 6) = "EMAIL;" ]
# TODO
Else If [ Left($line; 27) = "PHOTO;ENCODING=b;TYPE=JPEG:" ]
# Photo as base64 coded JPEG:
Set Variable [ $data ; Value: Middle ( $line ; 28; Length ( $line )) ]
Set Variable [ $LineIndex ; Value: $LineIndex + 1 ]
Loop
Set Variable [ $Line ; Value: GetValue($text; $lineindex) ]
Exit Loop If [ Left ( $line ; 1 ) ≠ " " ]
Set Variable [ $data ; Value: $data & ¶ & $line ]
# next
Set Variable [ $LineIndex ; Value: $LineIndex + 1 ]
Exit Loop If [ $LineIndex > $LineCount ]
End Loop
Set Variable [ $LineIndex ; Value: $LineIndex - 1 ]
Set Variable [ $image ; Value: Base64Decode ( $data; "image.jpg" ) ]
Set Field [ CON::imageOrLogo ; $image ]
End If
# next
Set Variable [ $LineIndex ; Value: $LineIndex + 1 ]
Exit Loop If [ $LineIndex > $LineCount ]
End Loop
# TODO: Commit record
End If
# next
Set Variable [ $index ; Value: $index + 1 ]
Exit Loop If [ $index > $count ]
End Loop
End If
End If
See also
- IsError
- JSON.Import
- List.CSVSplit
- Path.AddPathComponent
- Path.FileMakerPathToNativePath
- RichText.ReadFile
- RunTask.Launch
- SendMail.SetPlainText
- SendMail.SetRichText
- Text.AppendTextFile
- Text.ReadEMLXFile
- Text.ReplaceNewline
- Text.WriteTextFile
- XML.Import
- XML.Import.Work
Example Databases
Blog Entries
Created 18th August 2014, last changed 6th March 2019
Text.ReadEMLXFile - Text.ReadTextFromContainer
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