[PD] Reading and writing binary files

[Martin Peach]

On 2011-02-27 20:51, David wrote:
> Thanks for your help. It took me a while to figure out how 'list
> append' works, but I finally managed to get it working. I've attached
> the patch (intended to be used as an abstraction, invoked from another
> patch, which returns the data read from the file in a list).
>
> I have another question, though. How do the files get closed? When you
> exit PureData? Does that mean that every time you open a file, another
> system file handle is used and not released until you exit PureData?
> Or is there some way to explicitly close the file and release the file
> handle, buffers, etc.?


Actually read or write messages close the file right away, the buffer 
remains at least big enough to fit the largest file read or constructed 
in the buffer. If you want to clear the space you could read a 
zero-length file into the buffer, or delete the [binfile], or close the 
patch, or exit Pd, or switch off the machine...

Martin