Command: writefile

Syntax

writefile <channel>, <file>

Description

Write the contents of a file to a system output channel.

Parameters

• <channel>
  A channel identifier.

• <file>
  The file whose contents are to be sent to the channel.

Switches

• -k=<strings>
  -t=<strings>
  A set of keywords (-k) to be replaced by text values (-t). All occurrences of the keywords in <file> will be replaced by corresponding text values as the file gets written. Keywords are indicated in a file enclosed by $ and $.
  These switches apply only to the output of text files.

Notes

When written to a text channel, the file must be a text file. Writing a binary file to a text channel will have an undefined, and probably undesirable, result.

When written to a binary channel (e.g. the FireRender output channel), the file may be text or binary and the output will be wrapped in a Fire Hose Protocol packet of type NET_PACKET_FILE. When the ultimate recipient of the file is a browser, it is advisable to preface this command with a write command specifying the file type in an http header statement, see example below. This write + writefile sequence is typically done only once for each FireRender request.

Examples

Write a binary file.

writefile chan2, myfile.bin

Write an html file with keyword changes to the firerender channel, and ultimately a browser.

# Tell the browser it is an html file
write firerender_channel,'Content-Type: text/html'
writefile firerender_channel, myfile.htm, \ 
   -k=<'host','port'>, \ 
   -t=<'anchovy','3101'>

See Also