Visual Basic 2005 for Programmers: Deitel Developer Series, Second Edition
by Paul J. Deitel - Deitel & Associates, Inc., Harvey M. Deitel - Deitel & Associates, Inc.
18.1. Introduction
Variables and arrays offer only temporary storage of data—the data is lost when a local variable “goes out of scope” or when the program terminates. By contrast, files (and databases, which we cover in Chapter 20, Database, SQL and ADO.NET) are used for long-term retention of large amounts of data, even after the program that created the data terminates. Data maintained in files is often called persistent data. Computers store files on secondary storage devices, such as magnetic disks, optical disks and magnetic tapes. In this chapter, we explain how to create, update and process data files.
We begin with an overview of the data hierarchy from bits to files. Next, we overview some of the FCL’s file-processing classes. We then ...
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