How to include a text file into the project?

Getting Started Newbie Questions
#1

Hi all,

I am trying to include a text file (about 5MB) into the project. It will be read only. How can I access the file?

I tried:

local path = system.pathForFile( "myfile.txt", system.DocumentsDirectory ) local file, errorString = io.open( path, "r" )

but it didn’t find the file.

Also, if I want to do a search in the file (assuming the file is in alphabetical order) would I read it sequentially or am I better using a seek function to speed things up? (i.e. does a seek function speed things up or does it search sequentially as well)

Finally, am I better putting it in a lua file as a table? Would that use too much runtime device memory?

Many thanks.

#2

System.ResourceDirectory

#3

As for searching, an sqlite database would be much better.

#4

What’s the content of the file and the searches you’re going to do within them?

#5

It’s a word list (a dictionary) to check if the word entered by the user is a correct word.

#6

Then, by far the most simple and efficient datastructure is to read the dict into a table, use the words as key and a boolean true as a value.

[lua]

local path = system.pathForFile( “words.txt”, system.ResourceDirectory )

local dict = {}

for line in io.lines( path ) do

    dict[line] = true

end

if dict[“whateverword”] then

    – word exists

end

[/lua]

#7

@nick_sherman & @Michael Flad

Thanks to you both.  I found all the answers useful.

#8

System.ResourceDirectory

#9

As for searching, an sqlite database would be much better.

#10

What’s the content of the file and the searches you’re going to do within them?

#11

It’s a word list (a dictionary) to check if the word entered by the user is a correct word.

#12

Then, by far the most simple and efficient datastructure is to read the dict into a table, use the words as key and a boolean true as a value.

[lua]

local path = system.pathForFile( “words.txt”, system.ResourceDirectory )

local dict = {}

for line in io.lines( path ) do

    dict[line] = true

end

if dict[“whateverword”] then

    – word exists

end

[/lua]

#13

@nick_sherman & @Michael Flad

Thanks to you both.  I found all the answers useful.