NAME

readfile - return the entire contents of a file as a string

SYNOPSIS

@load "readfile"

result = readfile("/some/path")

For making whole files be single records:

@load "readfile"
BEGIN { PROCINFO["readfile"] = 1 }

DESCRIPTION

The readfile extension adds a single function named readfile(). The argument is the name of the file to read. The return value is a string containing the entire contents of the requested file.

Upon error, the function returns the empty string and sets ERRNO.

In addition, it adds an input parser that is activated if PROCINFO["readfile"] exists. When activated, each input file is returned in its entirety as $0. RT is set to the null string.

EXAMPLE

@load "readfile"
...
contents = readfile("/path/to/file");
if (contents == "" && ERRNO != "") {
    print("problem reading file", ERRNO) > "/dev/stderr"
    ...
}

AUTHOR

Arnold Robbins, arnold@skeeve.com.

COPYING PERMISSIONS

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Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual page under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.