[Solved] Trouble closiing a file

[JFistere]

My program normally Resets a file in order to read it, and process the lines. However I occasionally need to edit the file, and I successfully open it using RunCommand statements and Notepad. However I found of course that I needed to close the read operation before I could successfully save anything. When I use the statement Close(TextFile), the compiler tells me I have used the wrong number of parameters for the Close operation. TextFile is type text and I have moved it around to make it more global, but it was already in Form1.

What am I doing wrong?

[Windsurfer]

See http://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/rtl/system/close.html where there is an example. Make sure the file type is 'text', and try calling the file by a name other than 'textfile', say 'myfile'.

[balazsszekely]

Assign, Reset, Close are old pascal style function. Nowadays are much better ways to Load/Read text files(TStringList for example):

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
2. var
3.   SL: TStringList;
4.   I: Integer;
5. begin
6.   SL := TStringList.Create;
7.   try
8.     SL.LoadFromFile('Test.txt');
9.     for I := 0 to SL.Count - 1 do
10.     begin
11.       //process each line
12.       ShowMessage(SL.Strings[I]);
13.     end;
14.   finally
15.     SL.Free;
16.   end;
17. end;

[JFistere]

@GETMem: Thanks for your answer. I got it working my existing way so I will save your method for the next program. If you care to, could you explain why your method is better than the old method?

@Windsurfer:  Thanks for your reference.

I did three things to solve the problem: 1) Change the filename to MyTextFile 2) Close the file in the same procedure I was opening it. I was opening it multiple times without ever closing it. 3) The thing that actually made the difference finally was to use System.Close(MyTextFile); rather that just Close. I found the last item in another forum.