return 0 (meaning the file is not seekable, as the docs now explain) instead of 4KB...
[wxWidgets.git] / interface / wx / file.h
1 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
2 // Name: file.h
3 // Purpose: interface of wxTempFile
4 // Author: wxWidgets team
5 // RCS-ID: $Id$
6 // Licence: wxWindows license
7 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
8
9 /**
10 @class wxTempFile
11
12 wxTempFile provides a relatively safe way to replace the contents of the
13 existing file. The name is explained by the fact that it may be also used as
14 just a temporary file if you don't replace the old file contents.
15
16 Usually, when a program replaces the contents of some file it first opens it for
17 writing, thus losing all of the old data and then starts recreating it. This
18 approach is not very safe because during the regeneration of the file bad things
19 may happen: the program may find that there is an internal error preventing it
20 from completing file generation, the user may interrupt it (especially if file
21 generation takes long time) and, finally, any other external interrupts (power
22 supply failure or a disk error) will leave you without either the original file
23 or the new one.
24
25 wxTempFile addresses this problem by creating a temporary file which is meant to
26 replace the original file - but only after it is fully written. So, if the user
27 interrupts the program during the file generation, the old file won't be lost.
28 Also, if the program discovers itself that it doesn't want to replace the old
29 file there is no problem - in fact, wxTempFile will @b not replace the old
30 file by default, you should explicitly call wxTempFile::Commit
31 to do it. Calling wxTempFile::Discard explicitly discards any
32 modifications: it closes and deletes the temporary file and leaves the original
33 file unchanged. If you don't call neither of Commit() and Discard(), the
34 destructor will call Discard() automatically.
35
36 To summarize: if you want to replace another file, create an instance of
37 wxTempFile passing the name of the file to be replaced to the constructor (you
38 may also use default constructor and pass the file name to
39 wxTempFile::Open). Then you can wxTempFile::write
40 to wxTempFile using wxFile-like functions and later call
41 Commit() to replace the old file (and close this one) or call Discard() to
42 cancel
43 the modifications.
44
45 @library{wxbase}
46 @category{file}
47 */
48 class wxTempFile
49 {
50 public:
51 /**
52 Associates wxTempFile with the file to be replaced and opens it. You should use
53 IsOpened() to verify if the constructor succeeded.
54 */
55 wxTempFile(const wxString& strName);
56
57 /**
58 Destructor calls Discard() if temporary file
59 is still opened.
60 */
61 ~wxTempFile();
62
63 /**
64 Validate changes: deletes the old file of name m_strName and renames the new
65 file to the old name. Returns @true if both actions succeeded. If @false is
66 returned it may unfortunately mean two quite different things: either that
67 either the old file couldn't be deleted or that the new file couldn't be renamed
68 to the old name.
69 */
70 bool Commit();
71
72 /**
73 Discard changes: the old file contents is not changed, temporary file is
74 deleted.
75 */
76 void Discard();
77
78 /**
79 Returns @true if the file was successfully opened.
80 */
81 bool IsOpened() const;
82
83 /**
84 Returns the length of the file.
85
86 This method may return wxInvalidOffset if the length couldn't be
87 determined or also 0 even for non-empty files if the file is not
88 seekable. In general, the only way to determine if the file for which
89 this function returns 0 is really empty or not is to try reading from
90 it.
91 */
92 wxFileOffset Length() const;
93
94 /**
95 Open the temporary file, returns @true on success, @false if an error
96 occurred.
97 @a strName is the name of file to be replaced. The temporary file is always
98 created in the directory where @a strName is. In particular, if
99 @a strName doesn't include the path, it is created in the current directory
100 and the program should have write access to it for the function to succeed.
101 */
102 bool Open(const wxString& strName);
103
104 /**
105 Seeks to the specified position.
106 */
107 wxFileOffset Seek(wxFileOffset ofs,
108 wxSeekMode mode = wxFromStart);
109
110 /**
111 Returns the current position or wxInvalidOffset if file is not opened or if
112 another
113 error occurred.
114 */
115 wxFileOffset Tell() const;
116
117 /**
118 Write to the file, return @true on success, @false on failure.
119 The second argument is only meaningful in Unicode build of wxWidgets when
120 @a conv is used to convert @a str to multibyte representation.
121 */
122 bool Write(const wxString& str,
123 const wxMBConv& conv = wxConvUTF8);
124 };
125
126
127
128 /**
129 @class wxFile
130
131 A wxFile performs raw file I/O. This is a very small class designed to
132 minimize the overhead of using it - in fact, there is hardly any overhead at
133 all, but using it brings you automatic error checking and hides differences
134 between platforms and compilers. wxFile also automatically closes the file in
135 its destructor making it unnecessary to worry about forgetting to do it.
136 wxFile is a wrapper around @c file descriptor. - see also
137 wxFFile for a wrapper around @c FILE structure.
138
139 @c wxFileOffset is used by the wxFile functions which require offsets as
140 parameter or return them. If the platform supports it, wxFileOffset is a typedef
141 for a native 64 bit integer, otherwise a 32 bit integer is used for
142 wxFileOffset.
143
144 @library{wxbase}
145 @category{file}
146 */
147 class wxFile
148 {
149 public:
150 /**
151 Opening mode
152 */
153 enum OpenMode { read, write, read_write, write_append, write_excl };
154
155 /**
156 Standard file descriptors
157 */
158 enum { fd_invalid = -1, fd_stdin, fd_stdout, fd_stderr };
159
160 /**
161 Default constructor.
162 */
163 wxFile();
164
165 /**
166 Opens a file with a filename.
167
168 @param filename
169 The filename.
170 @param mode
171 The mode in which to open the file. May be one of @c wxFile::read,
172 @c wxFile::write and @c wxFile::read_write.
173 */
174 wxFile(const wxString& filename,
175 wxFile::OpenMode mode = wxFile::read);
176 /**
177 Associates the file with the given file descriptor, which has already been
178 opened. See Attach() for the list of predefined descriptors.
179
180 @param fd
181 An existing file descriptor.
182 */
183 wxFile(int fd);
184
185 /**
186 Destructor will close the file.
187 @note it is not virtual so you should not use wxFile polymorphically.
188 */
189 ~wxFile();
190
191 /**
192 This function verifies if we may access the given file in specified mode.
193 Only values of @c wxFile::read or @c wxFile::write really make sense here.
194 */
195 static bool Access(const wxString& name, OpenMode mode);
196
197 /**
198 Attaches an existing file descriptor to the wxFile object. Example of
199 predefined file descriptors are 0, 1 and 2 which correspond to stdin,
200 stdout and stderr (and have symbolic names of @c wxFile::fd_stdin,
201 @c wxFile::fd_stdout and @c wxFile::fd_stderr).
202
203 The descriptor should be already opened and it will be closed by wxFile
204 object.
205 */
206 void Attach(int fd);
207
208 /**
209 Closes the file.
210 */
211 void Close();
212
213 /**
214 Creates a file for writing. If the file already exists, setting @b overwrite to
215 @true
216 will ensure it is overwritten.
217 */
218 bool Create(const wxString& filename, bool overwrite = false,
219 int access = wxS_DEFAULT);
220
221 /**
222 Get back a file descriptor from wxFile object - the caller is responsible for
223 closing the file if this
224 descriptor is opened. IsOpened() will return @false after call to Detach().
225 */
226 void Detach();
227
228 /**
229 Returns @true if the end of the file has been reached.
230 Note that the behaviour of the file pointer based class
231 wxFFile is different as wxFFile::Eof will return @true here only if an
232 attempt has been made to read @b past the last byte of the file, while
233 wxFile::Eof() will return @true even before such attempt is made if the
234 file pointer is at the last position in the file.
235
236 Note also that this function doesn't work on unseekable file descriptors
237 (examples include pipes, terminals and sockets under Unix) and an attempt to
238 use it will result in an error message in such case. So, to read the entire
239 file into memory, you should write a loop which uses
240 Read() repeatedly and tests its return condition instead
241 of using Eof() as this will not work for special files under Unix.
242 */
243 bool Eof() const;
244
245 /**
246 Returns @true if the given name specifies an existing regular file (not a
247 directory or a link)
248 */
249 static bool Exists(const wxString& filename);
250
251 /**
252 Flushes the file descriptor.
253 Note that Flush() is not implemented on some Windows compilers
254 due to a missing fsync function, which reduces the usefulness of this function
255 (it can still be called but it will do nothing on unsupported compilers).
256 */
257 bool Flush();
258
259 /**
260 Returns the type of the file. Possible return values are:
261 */
262 wxFileKind GetKind() const;
263
264 /**
265 Returns @true if the file has been opened.
266 */
267 bool IsOpened() const;
268
269 /**
270 Returns the length of the file.
271 */
272 wxFileOffset Length() const;
273
274 /**
275 Opens the file, returning @true if successful.
276
277 @param filename
278 The filename.
279 @param mode
280 The mode in which to open the file. May be one of read(), write() and
281 wxFile::read_write.
282 */
283 bool Open(const wxString& filename,
284 wxFile::OpenMode mode = wxFile::read);
285
286 /**
287 Reads from the file into a memory buffer.
288
289 @param buffer
290 Buffer to write in
291 @param count
292 Bytes to read
293
294 @return The number of bytes read, or the symbol wxInvalidOffset
295 */
296 size_t Read(void* buffer, size_t count);
297
298 /**
299 Seeks to the specified position.
300
301 @param ofs
302 Offset to seek to.
303 @param mode
304 One of wxFromStart, wxFromEnd, wxFromCurrent.
305
306 @return The actual offset position achieved, or wxInvalidOffset on
307 failure.
308 */
309 wxFileOffset Seek(wxFileOffset ofs,
310 wxSeekMode mode = wxFromStart);
311
312 /**
313 Moves the file pointer to the specified number of bytes relative to the end of
314 the file. For example, @c SeekEnd(-5) would position the pointer 5
315 bytes before the end.
316
317 @param ofs
318 Number of bytes before the end of the file.
319
320 @return The actual offset position achieved, or wxInvalidOffset on
321 failure.
322 */
323 wxFileOffset SeekEnd(wxFileOffset ofs = 0);
324
325 /**
326 Returns the current position or wxInvalidOffset if file is not opened or
327 if another error occurred.
328 */
329 wxFileOffset Tell() const;
330
331 /**
332 Write data to the file (descriptor).
333
334 @param buffer
335 Buffer from which to read data
336 @param count
337 Number of bytes to write
338
339 @return The number of bytes written.
340 */
341 size_t Write(const void *buffer, size_t count);
342
343 /**
344 Writes the contents of the string to the file, returns @true on success.
345 The second argument is only meaningful in Unicode build of wxWidgets when
346 @a conv is used to convert @a s to a multibyte representation.
347 Note that this method only works with @c NUL-terminated strings, if you want
348 to write data with embedded @c NULs to the file you should use the other
349 Write() overload.
350 */
351 bool Write(const wxString& s, const wxMBConv& conv = wxConvUTF8);
352
353 /**
354 Returns the file descriptor associated with the file.
355 */
356 int fd() const;
357 };
358