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up vote 2 down vote favorite

I'm doing a program in Delphi, writing in all kinds of files, either text or executable:

var
  openfile: TextFile;
begin
      AssignFile(openfile, 'test.exe');
      Append(openfile);
      WriteLn(openfile,'[test]hi world[test]');
      CloseFile(openfile);
end;

How can I improve this?

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1  
There are other ways using native file handles, but the way you have done it is the recommended one. –  GiantTree Feb 25 at 16:57
1  
Although it might not be recommenced to write text to a file with a .EXE extension ,-) –  Mawg Apr 13 at 14:15

2 Answers 2

up vote 6 down vote accepted

Yes. I would add try..finally so that the file will be properly closed even in the case of exception (hopefully my remembrance of the syntax isn't too rusty):

var
  openfile: TextFile;
begin
      AssignFile(openfile, 'test.exe');
      Append(openfile);
      try
          WriteLn(openfile,'[test]hi world[test]');
      finally
          CloseFile(openfile);
      end;
end;

also, you say you want to write binary files as well as text files.. so don't use TextFile. The "modern" way would be to use TFileStream:

with TFileStream.Create('test.exe', fmOpenWrite) do
try
  Seek(0,soFromEnd);
  Write(...);
finally
  Free;
end;
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up vote 2 down vote

Please note that AssignFile routines are very old fashioned. Consider using OOP approach using streams, like

var
  f: TFileStream;
begin
  f:=TFileStream.Create(FileName, fmCreate);
  try
    f.WriteBuffer(Pointer(SourceString)^, Length(SourceString));
  finally
    f.Free;
  end;
end;

(SourceString in this case should be AnsiString. It needs a little change for Unicode)

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