Microsoft® Visual Basic® Scripting Edition OpenTextFile Method | Language Reference Version 2

See Also Applies To

##### Description

> Opens a specified file and returns a TextStream object that can be used to read from, write to, or append to the file.

##### Syntax

> object.OpenTextFile(filename[, iomode[, create[, format]]])

> The OpenTextFile method has these parts:

> Part | Description
> object | Required. Always the name of a FileSystemObject.
> filename | Required. String expression that identifies the file to open.
> iomode | Optional. Indicates input/output mode. Can be one of three constants: ForReading, ForWriting, or ForAppending.
> create | Optional. Boolean value that indicates whether a new file can be created if the specified filename doesn't exist. The value is True if a new file is created; False if it isn't created. The default is False.
> format | Optional. One of three Tristate values used to indicate the format of the opened file. If omitted, the file is opened as ASCII.

##### Settings

> The iomode argument can have either of the following settings:

> Constant | Value | Description
> ForReading | 1 | Open a file for reading only. You can't write to this file.
> ForWriting | 2 | Open a file for writing only. You can't read from this file.
> ForAppending | 8 | Open a file and write to the end of the file.

> The format argument can have any of the following settings:

> Constant | Value | Description
> TristateUseDefault | -2 | Opens the file using the system default.
> TristateTrue | -1 | Opens the file as Unicode.
> TristateFalse | 0 | Opens the file as ASCII.

##### Remarks

> The following code illustrates the use of the OpenTextFile method to open a file for writing text:

> >     Sub OpenTextFileTest
> >       Const ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2, ForAppending = 8
> >       Dim fso, f
> >       Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
> >       Set f = fso.OpenTextFile("c:\testfile.txt", ForWriting, True)
> >       f.Write "Hello world!"
> >       f.Close
> >     End Sub

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