[Ocaml-lib-devel] Function "read_file"?

[Markus M. <ma...@oe...>]

Hi,

one function that people may want to have in the standard library is
"read_file", which opens a file with a given name and returns its complete
contents as a string:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
let read_file name =
  let file = open_in name in
  let size = in_channel_length file in
  let buf = String.create size in
  begin
    try really_input file buf 0 size
    with exc ->
      begin try close_in file with _ -> () end;
      raise exc
  end;
  close_in file;
  buf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

This functions is optimal for files, because it uses the length of the
file to determine the required buffer size.

Note the following behaviour: if reading causes an exception, the program
will attempt to close the opened file. If this also causes an exception,
the FIRST exception will be reraised. I think this is the most reasonable
way to handle this.

Regards,
Markus

-- 
Markus Mottl          http://www.oefai.at/~markus          ma...@oe...