Using File Handles

These handles can be used to retrieve all FIN(n, keyword) values as properties for the file. For example, to retrieve the pathname of a file, you could access the property 'Pathname$ from a file object.

Setting a property on a Pseudo file object is functionally equivalent to issuing a 'OPTION'("name","value") against the file where "name" is the property name specified. For example, to set a file to be buffered, you could set its 'Buffered property to 1.

Typical Pseudo File Properties

Typical pseudo file properties are:

Pseudo-Property	Description
'CurKno	Returns the current key number being referenced.
'Extract	Returns 1 if a record currently extracted; otherwise 0.
'FileLength	Size of the file in bytes.
'Key_size	Returns the external key size of the file.
'LCL_Ctime$	File creation time (local time).
'MaxRec	Maximum records allowed in the file.
'Pathname$	Returns the pathname of the file.
'Record_size	Maximum record size.
'Records_used	Number of records in use in the file.
'UTC_Ctime$	File creation time as a Universal time.

Example:

Sysobj=new("*SYSTEM")
FileHdl=SysObj'File(5) ! This will yield a pseudo handle to the file open on channel 5
…
if FileHdl'EXTRACT \
     then write (5) \
     else write (5,key=_Key$)

Note:
Pseudo file handles can actually be passed as file channel number in any file related function or directive, allowing Pseudo file handles to replace channel numbers in most instances.