OpenOffice.org BASIC Guide - OpenOffice.org wiki

Reading and Changing File Properties
Files and Directories
When working with files, it is sometimes important to be able to establish the file properties, the time the file was
last changed and the length of the file.
The following call returns some properties about a file.
Dim Attr As Integer
Attr = GetAttr(Filename)
The return value is provided as a bit mask in which the following values are possible:
1 : read-only file
16 : name of a directory
The following example determines the bit mask of the test.txt file and checks whether this is read-only
whether it is a directory. If neither of these apply, FileDescription is assigned the "normal" string.
Dim FileMask As Integer
Dim FileDescription As String
FileMask = GetAttr("test.txt")
If (FileMask AND 1) > 0 Then
FileDescription = FileDescription & " read-only "
End IF
If (FileMask AND 16) > 0 Then
FileDescription = FileDescription & " directory "
End IF
If FileDescription = "" Then
FileDescription = " normal "
End IF
MsgBox FileDescription
Note – VBA : The flags used in VBA for querying the concealed, system file,archived and volume name
file properties are not supported in OpenOffice.org Basic because these are Windows-specific and are not or are
only partially available on other operating systems.
The SetAttr function permits the properties of a file to be changed. The following call can therefore be used to
provide a file with read-only status:
SetAttr("test.txt", 1)
An existing read-only status can be deleted with the following call:
SetAttr("test.txt", 0)
The date and time of the last amendment to a file are provided by the FileDateTime function. The date is
formatted here in accordance with the country-specific settings used on the system.
FileDateTime("test.txt") ' Provides date and time of the last file amendment.
The FileLen function determines the length of a file in bytes (as long integer value).
FileLen("test.txt") ' Provides the length of the file in bytes
Writing and Reading Text Files
OpenOffice.org Basic provides a whole range of methods for reading and writing files. The following
explanations relate to working with text files (not text documents).
Writing Text Files
Before a text file is accessed, it must first be opened. To do this, a free file handle is needed, which clearly
identifies the file for subsequent file access.
Chapter 3 · Runtime Library 45