Microsoft® JScript®
OpenTextFile Method
 Scripting Run-Time 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. Object is always the name of a FileSystemObject.
filename Required. String expression that identifies the file to open.
iomode Optional. 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. If omitted, a new file isn't created.
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 any 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.
ForAppending 8 Open a file and write to the end of the file.

The format argument can have any of the following settings:

Value Description
TristateTrue Open the file as Unicode.
TristateFalse Open the file as ASCII.
TristateUseDefault Open the file using the system default.

Remarks
The following code illustrates the use of the OpenTextFile method to open a file for appending text:
var fs, a, ForAppending;
ForAppending = 8;
fs = new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject");
a = fs.OpenTextFile("c:\\testfile.txt", ForAppending, false);
...
a.Close();