Table of Contents

# $EPIC: write.txt,v 1.2 2006/08/20 18:32:13 sthalik Exp $

Synopsis:

$write(<fd> <text>)
$writeb(<fd> <text>)

Technical:

This function writes the given text to the given file descriptor. A newline is automatically appended to the text. The $writeb() variant does the same thing, except the newline is not automatically appended.

As a special case, a window refnum can be given as the file descriptor by prefixing the refnum with a w. This provides access to the logfile for that window. The reserved window refnum 0 can be used to address the current window's logfile, and the reserved window refnum -1 actually addresses the global logfile.

Practical:

This function is useful for saving information to an external file. It is most often used in scripts for saving configuration settings and the like. The $writeb() function is useful for writing to binary files, or for writing lines to a file incrementally.

Returns:

  -1   if file descriptor does not exist
> -1   number of bytes written (text length plus newline, if applicable)

Examples:

$write(7 blah blah)             writes "blah blah" plus NL to fd "7"
$write(foo bar)                 "foo" not an fd, writes nothing
$writeb(7 blah blah)            writes "blah blah" to fd "7"
$writeb(foo bar)                "foo" not an fd, writes nothing
$write(w1 this is a test)       write to window refnum 1's logfile
$write(w0 this is a test)       write to the current window's logfile
$write(w-1 this is a test)      write to the global logfile