From: Chad Perrin <perrin@...>
Date: 2007-06-14T06:14:20+09:00
Subject: Re: Learn to Program, by Chris Pine

On Thu, Jun 14, 2007 at 06:04:25AM +0900, Tm Bo wrote:
> Hello all. Thanks to all the posters who came before me! You've been 
> tremendous help. I have a quick question on Chapter 11 - Reading and 
> Writing, Section 11.3:
> 
> <quote>
> file_name = 'TestFile.txt'
> test_string = 'Nothing!'
> 
> File.open file_name, 'w' do |f|
>   f.write test_string
> end
> 
> read_string = File.read file_name
> puts(read_string == test_string)
> </quote>
> 
> I poked around the web, but I can't find out what the 'w' is for. Can 
> anyone shed any light? Muchas gracias in advance.

Check out this page:

  http://www.rubycentral.com/book/ref_c_file.html

Looking at it, I see that File.open is sometimes a synonym for File.new,
so I checked File.new, and that's where I found documentation of the use
of characters in that position in the method call.

The w itself basically means "write".  It refers to how you open the file
(for reading, writing, or both).  Hopefully this gives you a helpful
start on figuring out the rest of the details of how File.new and
File.open work.

I was surprised to find that File.open isn't in my local ri database,
though.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Patrick J. LoPresti: "Emacs has been replaced by a shell script which 1)
Generates a syslog message at level LOG_EMERG; 2) reduces the user's disk
quota by 100K; and 3) RUNS ED!!!!!!"