filewrite

Function: filewrite
Section: programming/specific
C-Name: gp_filewrite
Prototype: vLs
Help: filewrite(n, s): write the string s to file attached to descriptor n,
 ending with a newline. The file must have been opened with fileopen in
 "w" or "a" mode.
Doc: write the string $s$ to the file attached to descriptor $n$, ending with
 a newline. The file must have been opened with \kbd{fileopen} in
 \kbd{"w"} or \kbd{"a"} mode. There is no guarantee that $s$ is completely
 written to disk until \kbd{fileclose$(n)$} is executed, which is automatic
 when quitting \kbd{gp}.

 If the newline is not desired, use \kbd{filewrite1}.

 \misctitle{Variant} The high-level function \kbd{write} is expensive when many
 consecutive writes are expected because it cannot use buffering. The low-level
 interface \kbd{fileopen} / \kbd{filewrite} / \kbd{fileclose} is more efficient:
 \bprog
 ? f = "/tmp/bigfile";
 ? for (i = 1, 10^5, write(f, i^2+1))
 time = 240 ms.

 ? v = vector(10^5, i, i^2+1);
 time = 10 ms. \\ computing the values is fast
 ? write("/tmp/bigfile2",v)
 time = 12 ms. \\ writing them in one operation is fast

 ? n = fileopen("/tmp/bigfile", "w");
 ? for (i = 1, 10^5, filewrite(n, i^2+1))
 time = 24 ms.  \\ low-level write is ten times faster
 ? fileclose(n);
 @eprog\noindent In the final example, the file needs not be in a consistent
 state until the ending \kbd{fileclose} is evaluated, e.g. some lines might be
 half-written or not present at all even though the corresponding
 \kbd{filewrite} was executed already. Both a single high-level \kbd{write}
 and a succession of low-level \kbd{filewrite}s achieve the same efficiency,
 but the latter is often more natural. In fact, concatenating naively
 the entries to be written is quadratic in the number of entries, hence
 much more expensive than the original write operations:
 \bprog
 ? v = []; for (i = 1, 10^5, v = concat(v,i))
 time = 1min, 41,456 ms.
 @eprog