.TH READFILE 3am "Jan 15 2013" "Free Software Foundation" "GNU Awk Extension Modules"
.SH NAME
readfile \- return the entire contents of a file as a string
.SH SYNOPSIS
.ft CW
@load "readfile"
.sp
result = readfile("/some/path")
.ft R
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.I readfile
extension adds a single function named
.BR readfile() .
The argument is the name of the file to read.
The return value is a string containing the entire contents of
the requested file.
.PP
Upon error, the function returns the empty string and sets
.BR ERRNO .
... .SH NOTES
... .SH BUGS
.SH EXAMPLE
.ft CW
.nf
@load "readfile"
\&...
contents = readfile("/path/to/file");
if (contents == "" && ERRNO != "") {
    print("problem reading file", ERRNO) > "/dev/stderr"
    ...
}
.fi
.ft R
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.IR "GAWK: Effective AWK Programming" ,
.IR filefuncs (3am),
.IR fnmatch (3am),
.IR fork (3am),
.IR inplace (3am),
.IR ordchr (3am),
.IR readdir (3am),
.IR revoutput (3am),
.IR rwarray (3am),
.IR time (3am).
.SH AUTHOR
Arnold Robbins,
.BR arnold@skeeve.com .
.SH COPYING PERMISSIONS
Copyright \(co 2012, 2013,
Free Software Foundation, Inc.
.PP
Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
this manual page provided the copyright notice and this permission
notice are preserved on all copies.
.ig
Permission is granted to process this file through troff and print the
results, provided the printed document carries copying permission
notice identical to this one except for the removal of this paragraph
(this paragraph not being relevant to the printed manual page).
..
.PP
Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this
manual page under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided that
the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a
permission notice identical to this one.
.PP
Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this
manual page into another language, under the above conditions for
modified versions, except that this permission notice may be stated in
a translation approved by the Foundation.