In this article, I'm only actually covering the essentials. In Game Programming, most File I/O features are unnecessary. Most often, you will want to do one of three things:
- Open an existing file for loading in information
- Open a new file for saving information, or overwriting an existing file
These two things will get you pretty far.
Some prototypes you will want to be familiar with (these are straight out of the VC++ help file):
HANDLE CreateFile(
LPCTSTR lpFileName, // pointer to name of the file
DWORD dwDesiredAccess, // access (read-write) mode
DWORD dwShareMode, // share mode
LPSECURITY_ATTRIBUTES lpSecurityAttributes, // pointer to security descriptor
DWORD dwCreationDistribution, // how to create
DWORD dwFlagsAndAttributes, // file attributes
HANDLE hTemplateFile // handle to file with attributes to copy
);
BOOL CloseHandle(
HANDLE hObject // handle to object to close
);
BOOL ReadFile(
HANDLE hFile, // handle of file to read
LPVOID lpBuffer, // address of buffer that receives data
DWORD nNumberOfBytesToRead, // number of bytes to read
LPDWORD lpNumberOfBytesRead, // address of number of bytes read
LPOVERLAPPED lpOverlapped // address of structure for data
);
BOOL WriteFile(
HANDLE hFile, // handle to file to write to
LPCVOID lpBuffer, // pointer to data to write to file
DWORD nNumberOfBytesToWrite, // number of bytes to write
LPDWORD lpNumberOfBytesWritten, // pointer to number of bytes written
LPOVERLAPPED lpOverlapped // addr. of struct needed for overlapped I/O
);Some variables you will need for reading files:
//file handle
HANDLE hFile;
//something to contain the number of bytes read
DWORD dwNumRead;
//a boolean test variable, to test for success of reads
BOOL bTest;
//a buffer... can actually be of any type
DWORD dwBuffer[256];Opening an existing file for reading:
hFile = CreateFile("D:\\mypath\\myfile.dat", GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ,
NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL);
/* if there is a problem opening the file, a call to
GetLastError will tell you what it is */To read from the file:
bTest= ReadFile(hFile, dwBuffer, sizeof(DWORD)*256, &dwNumRead,NULL);
/* bTest will be TRUE if the read is successful.
If false, take a look at GetLastError */To close the file:
BTest=CloseHandle(hFile);
/*bTest will be true if the file closed correctly.
If false, take a look at GetLastError */Some variables you will need for writing files:
//file handle
HANDLE hFile;
//something to contain the number of bytes read
DWORD dwNumWritten;
//a boolean test variable, to test for success of reads
BOOL bTest;
//a buffer... can actually be of any type
DWORD dwBuffer[256];Opening a new file for writing:
hFile = CreateFile("D:\\mypath\\myfile.dat", GENERIC_WRITE, FILE_SHARE_WRITE,
NULL, CREATE_ALWAYS, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL);
/* if there is a problem opening the file, a call to
GetLastError will tell you what it is */To write to the file:
bTest= WriteFile(hFile, dwBuffer, sizeof(DWORD)*256, &dwNumWritten,NULL);
/* bTest will be TRUE if the read is successful.
If false, take a look at GetLastError */To close the file:
BTest=CloseHandle(hFile);
/*bTest will be true if the file closed correctly.
If false, take a look at GetLastError */Okay... that's all there is to it. However, I'm going to leave you with a couple of examples, so that you can see what is going on in various circumstances.
Top Ten List: how to save it and load it
First, you need some sort of structure to contain your Top Ten List.
struct TopTenEntry
{
char szName[11];
DWORD dwScore;
};
TopTenEntry tteScore[11]; //there are 11 elements so that when
// a new score is added, it can be added as the 11th element,
// and then sorted. Elements 0 through 9 will be saved, element 10 will notNext, you'll want a function to save a top ten list
BOOL SaveTopTenList(LPCTSTR FileName, TopTenEntry *Entries)
{
BOOL bTest=FALSE;
DWORD dwNumWritten=0;
HANDLE hFile=CreateFile(FileName,GENERIC_WRITE,FILE_SHARED_WRITE,
NULL, CREATE_ALWAYS, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL);
bTest = WriteFile(hFile,Entries,sizeof(TopTenEntry)*10,&NumWritten, NULL);
bTest= CloseHandle(hFile);
return(TRUE);
}You'll probably also want something to load it in...
BOOL LoadTopTenList(LPCTSTR FileName, TopTenEntry *Entries)
{
BOOL bTest=FALSE;
DWORD dwNumRead=0;
HANDLE hFile=CreateFile(FileName,GENERIC_READ,FILE_SHARED_READ,
NULL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, NULL);
bTest = ReadFile(hFile,Entries,sizeof(TopTenEntry)*10,&NumRead, NULL);
bTest= CloseHandle(hFile);
return(TRUE);
}Sorting, and other stuff I leave up to you, as it is beyond the scope of this article... maybe you'll want to extend the thing by including the date and time on the topten list, etc.
Note: I do absolutely NO error checking in my examples.
TANSTAAFL
November 4, 1998
