Hm. Anarki calls them w/stdoutfile and w/stdinfile, but wouldn't tofile and fromfile be more consistent with tostring and fromstring (and shorter, besides)? Then there's the whole appending business. Can't really give an optional parameter to tofile like outfile has, and toappendfile runs together horribly. What about just appendfile?
Then, using readline instead of readfile so that it (1) doesn't try to parse things as s-exprs and (2) doesn't read the entire file for no good reason, I'd envision it thus:
I'm not sure about the appendfile--given what infile and outfile do, it sounds like a procedure that creates an output-port that appends to a file. Maybe to-appendfile, appendtofile, appendingfile, tofile/append... Alternatively, we could make keyword arguments happen in Arc, and then you would just throw ":append t" or something inside the call to tofile. That would also allow for further extension with, e.g., an :if-exists argument.
How about 'tolog? Are files opened for appending for other reasons, in practice? This would also keep with the to-means-output, from-means-input pattern.
I'd try to err on the side of generality. And I'm not quite as concerned about to:output / from:input, if the names are still "clear enough".
As to waterhouse's suggestions, I had considered those names. I suppose if you read appendfile as a noun instead of a verb-and-noun, it's confusing (though infile and outfile don't really have the same problem, so it's not the train of thought my brain follows). It's hard modifying a name like tofile with a long word like append. We already have two words in tofile, so adding a third without hyphenation is stretching it, and adding hyphens breaks the flow with the other names (fromfile, tostring, etc.). We could go for something shorter, like addtofile, which delineates itself well without hyphens because each word is one syllable. If we can't avoid hyphens, using / instead (e.g., tofile/a or tofile/append) flows better, but isn't that great.
Another name that occurred to me -- and is probably my favorite so far -- is ontofile, which is still simple enough to not need hyphens, communicates intent (appending something onto a file), and worms the word to in there, painting it with the to:output / from:input correlation. Thoughts?
Another name that occurred to me -- and is probably my favorite so far -- is ontofile, which is still simple enough to not need hyphens, communicates intent (appending something onto a file), and worms the word to in there, painting it with the to:output / from:input correlation. Thoughts?
+1! ontofile is a great name, in my opinion, for all the reasons you listed.
I searched for a good portmanteau in the vein of mappend, but I don't think there is one. fappend? Sounds like frappuchino. filepend is decent, but I think I prefer ontofile.
