ASP Tutorials - Herong's Tutorial Examples
Dr. Herong Yang, Version 5.00

"TextStream" Class - Input or Output Stream

This section provides a tutorial example on how to use the TextStream class that represents an input or output stream connected to a file. TextStream class is provided in the Scripting Runtime DLL, scrrun.dll.

TextStream: A class representing an input or output stream connected to a file. It offers the following properties and methods:

  • "AtEndOfLine": Property to return true if the current reading position is before the end of a line.
  • "AtEndOfStream": Property to return true if the current reading position is before the end of the file.
  • "Column": Property to return the column number of the current position.
  • "Line": Property to return the line number of the current position.
  • "Close()":
  • "Read(n)": Method to return a string of characters up to the specified number.
  • "ReadAll()": Method to return a string of the rest characters in the stream.
  • "ReadLine()": Method to return a string of the rest characters in the line.
  • "Skip(n)":
  • "SkipLine()":
  • "Write(string)":
  • "WriteLine([stsring])":
  • "WriteBlankLines(n))":

Here is a sample ASP page to show you how to create and open a text file.

<script language="vbscript" runat="server">
'  text_stream_test.asp
'  Copyright (c) 1999 by Dr. Herong Yang
'  This program shows how to create and open files as text stream 
'  objects.
'
   response.write("<html><body>")
   response.write("<b>Tests on the TextStream class</b>:<br/>")
   ' Getting the FileSystemObject
   set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
   ' Creating a new file for writing
   set out = fs.CreateTextFile("c:\temp\test.txt",true,false)
   out.WriteLine("FirstName=Bill")
   out.WriteLine("LastName=Smith")
   out.WriteLine("Email=bill@com.com")
   out.Close()
   ' Open an existing file for reading
   set inn = fs.OpenTextFile("c:\temp\test.txt",1)
   while inn.AtEndOfStream = false
      line = inn.ReadLine()
      response.write(line & "<br/>")
   wend
   inn.Close()
   response.write("</body></html>")
</script>

Output:

Tests on TextStream class:
FirstName=Bill
LastName=Smith
Email=bill@com.com

Note that:

  • If you look at the directory c:\temp, you will a new file "test.txt".
  • You can not create new files in c:\inetpub\wwwroot. If you try, you will get "permission denied" error message.
  • "in" seems to be a reserved word. So I used "inn" as a variable name.
  • "wend" ends the "while" statement. I really don't know why the designers can not use "end while".

Last update: 2002.

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 ASP (Active Server Pages) Introduction

 IIS (Internet Information Services) 5.0

 MS Script Debugger

 VBScript Language

 ASP Built-in Run-time Objects

 ASP Session

 Creating and Managing Cookies

 Managing Sessions with and without Cookies

scrrun.dll - Scripting Runtime DLL

 What Is scrrun.dll?

 "Dictionary" Class - Collection of Key-Value Pairs

 "FileSystemObject" Class - File System

 "Drive" Class - Disk Drive

 "Folder" Class - File Folder

 "File" Class - File Folder

"TextStream" Class - Input or Output Stream

 Managing Response Header Lines

 Calculation Speed and Response Time

 ADO (ActiveX Data Object) DLL

 Working with MS Access Database

 Guest Book Application Example

 References

 PDF Printing Version

Dr. Herong Yang, updated in 2010
"TextStream" Class - Input or Output Stream