Reading and Writing Text Files in Ruby

%Q(=============================================================================

          Reading and Writing Text Files in Ruby -  A Quick Tutorial
                            presented by mjshi

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    Making a file!
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  f = File.new("file_name.txt", "w")

    Of course, you can have your own filename, and f can be anything!
    You just have to change everything else to match.
    So if I had

  a = File.new("boo.txt", "w")

    then my other commands would be

  a.write("BOO!")
  a.close

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    Saving text into it!
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  f.write("Hi there!")

    To make text appear on different lines, add a \n!

  f.write("Hi\nthere!")

    will make the text file look like this:

    Hi
    there!

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    Closing the file
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    Make sure to close the file after you're done with writing stuff into
    it so the file doesn't take up memory space.

  f.close

    Well, that was easy.

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    Reading Text Files
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  c = File.open("key.txt", &:gets) if File.exist?("key.txt")

    Now, let's translate this into common English!

  +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  |  c =
  |    Save the following stuff in c --
  |
  |  File.open("key.txt", &:gets)
  |    the strings of text inside the file named "key.txt"
  |
  |  if File.exist?("key.txt")
  |    if the file named "key.txt" can be found in the game root directory.
  +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    File.exist?("filename.txt") can actually also be used in a conditional
    branch's script section to check if the file is in that directory, and

    File.zero?("filename.txt") can also be used to check if the file is empty.

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                            Hope that was helpful!
                    Now, go forth and break some 4th walls!

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