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TrFile_ContentsDialog |
Shows the user a file selection dialog, the contents of the selected file is returned.
This function is a combination of “TrFile_SelectFileDialog” followed by a “TrFile_GetContents” function.
Syntax
TrFile_ContentsDialog ( switches ; { prompt ; { initialFolder } } )
Parameters
| switches | these alter the behavior of the function |
| prompt | (optional) adds a prompt text to the GetFile Dialog. It may be left empty |
| initialFolder | (optional) the path to the folder where the dialog initially starts |
Switches
Switches can be empty or one of this:
| -Encoding=Native | (default) |
| -Encoding=UTF8 | |
| -Encoding=ASCII_DOS | |
| -Encoding=ASCII_Windows | |
| -Encoding=ASCII_Mac |
This determines the character encoding of the text to be read.
You can also add this switch:
| -ConvertToFMPLinebreaks | this will convert any line breaks in the data to the line break FileMaker expects: CRLF, LF and CR will all become CR. |
Returned Result
Data type returned
Text
Result
The characters of the file the user selected. If the user pressed cancel an error code “$$-1” is returned.
Originated in
Troi File Plug-in 1.0
Compatibility
FileMaker Pro 17 to FileMaker Pro 21 (2024)
Considerations
You can read up to 2 Gb into a field. However more than 500000 characters will slow down FileMaker considerably.
Only use -ConvertToFMPLinebreaks when getting text files, as it might change the data returned. If for example you use it with an image file the imported image might get corrupted.
On Mac the dialog will filter and show only text files by default. To change the default filtering use the TrFile_SetDefaultType function, or take a look at “Filtering Files” in the example databases.
Up to v5.0 there was an error in the documentation: it was incorrectly stated that UTF-8 was the default encoding. The default is -Encoding=Native, which is the current encoding as set in the system preference, for example on western Windows systems it usually is ISO_8859_1 or ASCII_Windows.
Example
Set Field [ result ; TrFile_ContentsDialog ( "-Unused" ;
"Please select the text file you want to use:" ; "D:\DataFiles\" ) ]You can also use a calculation for the prompt, for example this one which uses a global text field:
Set Field [ result ; TrFile_ContentsDialog ( "-Unused" ;
"Please select the Excel file \"" & gFileName & "\"":" ) ]This will result in a file selection dialog with this prompt text:
‘Please select the Excel file “invoices99.xls”:’.
Used in example file
DataIn.fmp12
Related functions
| TrFile_GetContents |
| TrFile_SelectFileDialog |
Related script step
| Get File Contents with Dialog |
Related topics
Troi File Plug-in online help (overview)
