FileOpen handle release

[pekster]

If I define a UDF that opens a file, should I explicitly call the FileClose, or will AutoIt release it when the function ends? It is a local variable that holds the file pointer, but the helpfile says that the file is only released after the script exits. I would rather not leave the file handle open if it doesn't release it on the function's return.

[Valik]

Even though AutoIt does clean up after the programmer, it's bad habit to leave resources lying around if they aren't in use, so you should explicitly call FileClose().

And as a technical aside, the file handle is nothing more than an index into an array. So technically, if you know that there should be a valid file handle, you can pass a literal number as the "filehandle" parameter to reference it, completely skipping a variable (Note that I don't condone or advocate using this method).

Edit: Here is an example of that:

FileWrite("test.txt", "Blah")
FileOpen("test.txt", 0)
MsgBox(4096, "", FileReadLine(0))
FileClose(0)

The first file opened has a "handle" of 0, the second file is 1, et cetera (provided no files are closed, obviously, as that would free a handle up).

Edited July 6, 2004 by Valik