In the eggPlant Documentation, under working with files, it is a possibility to write a file as so:
add 1 to item 2 of line 1 of file “/tmp/testing/counters”
In this example, it is not written that the file is being stored into a container before being written to. My question is then, is it possible to write to a file without having to store its contents into a container in eggPlant? And if so, would the syntax follow as above?
I’m not sure I understand exactly what you are asking. The add command that you copied above illustrates the fact that a file can be treated directly as a container in SenseTalk (like a variable). That single line of code will modify the contents of the second item of the first line of the file, without needing to first read the file into a variable, then modify that and write it back out.
So the specific answers to your questions are: Yes, you can write to a file without storing it to some other container first; and Yes, the line of code you showed is one example of how to do that.
Is that what you wanted to know?
Your answer helps clarify some of my confusion. Thank you. What I was trying to ask is if there is a way to append to a file without having to load that file into eggPlant memory?
If you just want to append to the file, you can use code like this:
put return & "very important data" after file "/path/to/myfile"
This does not load the file into memory; neither does the example in your original post. You can also “put before” a file or put something into a specific line. eggPlant opens the file, modifies it, and closes it.