standard.openFile

Displays a file dialog window to let the user select a single file path on the local file system.

Syntax

ui.Interface.frontCall("standard", "openFile",
 [path,name,wildcards,caption],
 [result])
  1. path - The initial directory path to look for files. On some platforms, when path is a filename like "/tmp/document.txt", the name of the file is used as default file to be selected. This parameter might also be ignored. See Usage section for more details.
  2. name - The label to be displayed for the file types / wildcards. This parameter may be ignored on some platforms. See Usage section for more details.
  3. wildcards - A space-separated list of file extensions with the star-dot prefix ("*.pdf *.jpg"). Supported file extensions is platform-specific. See Usage section for more details.
  4. caption - The caption of the file dialog window / frame. This parameter may be ignored on some platforms. See Usage section for more details.
  5. result - The name of the selected file (or NULL if canceled).

Usage

When invoking the "openFile" front call, the front-end displays a file dialog window using the local file system, to let the end user select an existing file.

The file dialog window rendering and features depend on the type of front end and the type of the front end platform (desktop OS, web browser).

If the user cancels the dialog, the front call returns NULL in the result variable.

Important:

When using GAS and a web browser, the path parameter is ignored.

When specifying a file path, pay attention to platform specific rules regarding directory separators and space characters in filenames. When the front-end executes on a recent Microsoft™ Windows™ system, you can use the / slash character as directory separator, like on Unix systems. A directory or filename can contain spaces, and there is no need to surround the path with double quotes in such case. When using backslash directory separators, make sure to escape backslash characters in string literals with \\.

When using the GMA or GMI front-end, the values returned by openFile and openFiles front calls contains a temporary system location of the file on the mobile device. This path is platform dependent, and may change in future versions. Consider the path returned by these front calls as an opaque local file identifier, and do not use this path as a persistent file name.

Once the file path is known, it is possible to fetch the file content from the device to the program context with the fgl_getfile() API. The procedure is similar to fetching photos from the device. For more details, see the section about file management on mobile devices.

Mobile platform specific notes for the openFile and openFiles front calls:
  • Android/GMA:
    • Using the openFile/openFiles front calls requires the android.permission.READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE Dangerous Permissions to be specified when building the APK. See Android permissions for more details.
    • The values returned by the front call contain the filename and the extension as a URL query string format: ?name=filename&ext=extension
    • The path, name and caption parameters are ignored by GMA. The Android file manager opens by default the last folder where a file was selected. The first time the front call is executed on the device, it opens the "recent files" folder.
    • Supported wildcards are those listed in https://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml (custom extensions are not supported)
    • See Handling files on Android devices for more details.
  • iOS/GMI:
    • The name and the caption parameters are ignored.
    • Prior to iOS 13, the path parameter is ignored and the file chooser always opens in the last location it was used. Startting with iOS 13, the path parameter is used: When running on the device, one can use os.Path.pwd() for example. When running remote, the current directory on the device cannot be known, but "." can be used as a synonym for the "Documents" directory on the device.
    • By default, common file extensions like *.pdf or *.png are recognized. Custom extensions like *.err are by default grayed. To enable picking files with custom extension, it must be specified in the Info.plist file.
    • If the filename returned starts with "file:" prefix, it is a URL to a file external to the app, to be fetched with fgl_getfile() for example. When no "file:" prefix is present, it is a file from the app sandbox, that can be used with os.Path methods.
    • See Handling files on iOS devices for more details.

Example

MAIN
    DEFINE rec RECORD
                path STRING,
                name STRING,
                wildcards STRING,
                caption STRING
           END RECORD
    DEFINE result STRING

    LET rec.path = "/tmp"
    LET rec.name = "Image files"
    LET rec.wildcards = "*.jpg *.png"
    LET rec.caption = "Open file"
    CALL ui.Interface.frontCall("standard","openFile",[rec.*],[result])

    IF result IS NULL THEN
       DISPLAY "No file was selected."
    ELSE
       DISPLAY "File :", result
    END IF

END MAIN