The Standard ML Basis Library

The BinIO structure

Synopsis

signature BIN_IO
structure BinIO :> BIN_IO

The structure BinIO provides input/output of binary data (8-bit bytes). The semantics of the various I/O operations can be found in the description of the IMPERATIVE_IO signature. The openIn and openOut functions allow the creation of binary streams to read and write file data. Certain implementations may provide other ways to open files in structures specific to an operating system.

Interface

include IMPERATIVE_IO
  where type StreamIO.vector = Word8Vector.vector
  where type StreamIO.elem = Word8.word
  where type StreamIO.reader = BinPrimIO.reader
  where type StreamIO.writer = BinPrimIO.writer
  where type StreamIO.pos = BinPrimIO.pos
val openIn  : string -> instream
val openOut : string -> outstream
val openAppend : string -> outstream

Description

openIn name
openOut name
These functions open the file named name for input and output, respectively. If name is a relative pathname, the file opened depends on the current working directory. With openOut, the file is created if it does not already exist and truncated to length zero otherwise. These raise Io if a stream cannot be opened on the given file or, in the case of openIn, the file name does not exist.

openAppend name
opens the file named name for output in append mode, creating it if it does not already exist. If the file already exists, it sets the current position at the end of the file. It raises Io if a stream cannot be opened on the given file.

Beyond having the initial file position at the end of the file, any additional properties are system and implementation dependent. On operating systems (e.g., Unix) that support ``atomic append mode,'' each (flushed) output operation to the file will be appended to the end, even if there are other processes writing to the file simultaneously. Due to buffering, however, writing on an outstream need not be atomic, i.e., output from a different process may interleave the output of a single write using the stream library. On certain other operating systems, having the file open for writing prevents any other process from opening the file for writing.

See Also

IMPERATIVE_IO, OS.Path, Posix.FileSys, Posix.IO, TextIO

Discussion

All streams created by mkInstream, mkOutstream, and the open functions in BinIO will be closed (and the output streams among them flushed) when the SML program exits.

Note that the BinIO.StreamIO.pos type, equal to the BinPrimIO.pos type, is concrete, being a synonym for Position.int.

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Generated October 02, 2003
Last Modified July 1, 2002
Comments to John Reppy.

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