Read A Text File
set theFIleText to (theFileAsAlias) of me
on ReadFile(theFile) -- (alias) as text
set theOpenFile to open for access theFile
set theContent to read theOpenFile
close access theOpenFile
return theContent
end ReadFile
Write A Text File
Apple has a great snippet for writing to a file, complete with error handling and toggling appending to a pre-existing file. The following snippet offers a cleaner interface by eliminating the three original arguments and leaving only the text to be written. Add salt to taste because this does simply append to the pre-existing text contained in the file. Generally this isn’t a bad thing, especially if I am writing a log file and I want to the effect of changes across iterations or multiple batches.
my WriteLog("Once upon a time in Silicon Valley...")
on WriteLog(the_text)
set this_story to the_text -- other formatting can be added here like a time stamp, {return}, etc.
set this_file to (((path to desktop folder) as text) & "MY STORY")
my write_to_file(this_story, this_file, true)
end WriteLog