Name
close access — close file
Description
Closes a file. Always close a file you have opened for access.
In general, the file data commands are smart about how they let you
describe the file you want to operate on: they can take a file
reference number returned by open for
access
, or a file specifier or alias.
When using the file data commands, you should ensure sufficient error handling so as not to leave a file open. If you do accidentally leave a file open, you might have to quit the current application (such as the Script Editor) in order to close it.
In this example, we use AppleScript to construct a miniature
“database.” We have some strings;
taking advantage of the write
command’s starting at
parameter,
we write each string into a 32-character
“field.” The example perhaps
overdoes the error handling, but it shows the general idea:
set pep to {"Mannie", "Moe", "Jack"} set f to (path to current user folder as string) & "testFile" try set fNum to open for access file f with write permission on error close access file f return end try try set eof fNum to 0 -- erase if exists set eof fNum to (count pep) * 32 repeat with i from 1 to (count pep) write item i of pep to fNum starting at (i - 1) * 32 end repeat close access fNum on error close access fNum end try
Now we’ll fetch the data from the “database.” We take advantage of the fact that all data that isn’t part of a string is null.
set f to choose file of type "TEXT" try set fNum to open for access f on error close access f return ...
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