Reads the specified number of bytes from the given file starting at its current read/write position, and returns them as a string.

Note

fileOpen sets the read/write position to the beginning of the file. fileGetSize gets the total size in bytes of given file.

OOP Syntax Help! I don't understand this!

• Method: file:read(...)

Syntax

string|false fileRead ( file theFile, int count )

Required Arguments

• theFile: A handle to the file you wish to read from. Use fileOpen to obtain this handle.
• count: The number of bytes you wish to read.

Returns

• string|false: result

Returns the bytes that were read in a string. Note that this string might not contain as many bytes as you specified if an error occured, i.e. end of file.

Code Examples

Example 1 Example 2 (OOP)

client

This example opens the file test.txt and outputs its contents to the console.

function readFile(path)
    local file = fileOpen(path) -- attempt to open the file
    if not file then
        return false -- stop function on failure
    end
    local count = fileGetSize(file) -- get file's total size
    local data = fileRead(file, count) -- read whole file
    fileClose(file) -- close the file once we're done with it
    outputConsole(data) -- output code in console
end

addCommandHandler("readfile",function(cmd,fileName) -- add command to test this function
    readFile(fileName) -- execute the function
end)

client

OOP Required

This example opens the file test.txt and outputs its contents to the console.

function readFile(path)
    local file = File(path) -- attempt to open the file
    if (not file) then
        return false -- stop function on failure
    end
    local count = file.size -- get file's total size
    local data = file:read(count) -- read whole file
    file:close() -- close the file once we're done with it
    outputConsole(data) -- output code in console
end

addCommandHandler("readfile",function(cmd,fileName) -- add command to test this function
    readFile(fileName) -- execute the function
end)

See Also

File Functions

• fileClose
• fileCopy
• fileCreate
• fileDelete
• fileExists
• fileFlush
• fileGetContents
• fileGetHash
• fileGetPath
• fileGetPos
• fileGetSize
• fileIsEOF
• fileOpen
• fileRead
• fileRename
• fileSetPos
• fileWrite

File Elements

• file

Reference

• Scripting Functions