1. Getting Started
      1. Basic Installation
      2. What is MODx
    2. Content Editing
      1. Editing Documents
      2. MODx Tags
        1. Document Variables
      3. Terminology
      4. The Manager
      5. Who Should Read This
    3. Designing
      1. Adding Chunks
      2. Adding MODx Tags
        1. Resource Fields
      3. Adding Snippets
      4. Document Caching
      5. Template Basics
    4. Administration
      1. Friendly URL Solutions
      2. Manager Users
        1. Manager Roles And Groups
        2. Reset your Password - Unblock your User
        3. Why Manager Users, Roles and Groups
      3. Moving Site
      4. Taking sites down for maintenance
      5. Upgrading
      6. Web Users
        1. Creating a Web User
        2. Web User Groups and Document Groups
        3. Why Web Users and Groups
    5. Developer's Guide
      1. API Reference
        1. DBAPI
          1. delete
          2. escape
          3. getInsertId
          4. query
          5. select
          6. update
        2. Document Object
        3. DocumentParser Object
          1. addEventListener
          2. changeWebUserPassword
          3. documentContent
          4. documentGenerated
          5. documentIdentifier
          6. documentListing
          7. documentMethod
          8. documentObject
          9. getAllChildren
          10. getCachePath
          11. getChildIds
          12. getDocumentChildren
          13. getDocumentChildrenTVarOutput
          14. getDocumentChildrenTVars
          15. getLoginUserID
          16. getLoginUserName
          17. getLoginUserType
          18. getManagerPath
          19. getParent
          20. getParentIds
          21. getUserData
          22. hasPermission
          23. isBackend
          24. isFrontend
          25. logEvent
          26. maxParserPasses
          27. minParserPasses
          28. regClientCSS
          29. runSnippet
          30. table_prefix
          31. tstart
          32. webAlert
      2. Chunks
      3. Modules
        1. How to create and run a module from within the Content Manager
        2. Managing module dependencies
        3. Setting up configuration parameters
        4. Writing the module code
      4. Plugins
      5. Snippets
      6. Template Variables
        1. (at) Binding
          1. (at)CHUNK
          2. (at)DIRECTORY
          3. (at)DOCUMENT
          4. (at)EVAL
          5. (at)FILE
          6. (at)INHERIT
          7. (at)SELECT
          8. What are (at) Bindings
        2. Creating a Template Variable
        3. What are Template Variables
        4. Widgets
          1. Misc. Widget
          2. DataGrid Widget
          3. Floater Widget
          4. Hyperlink Widget
          5. Marquee Widget
          6. RichTextBox Widget
          7. Ticker Widget
          8. Viewport Widget
          9. What are Widgets

(at)FILE

Syntax

@FILE file_path

Binds the variable to a file, where file_path is the path and name of the file. The return value is a string containing the content of the file. The file path is the absolute path from the root
of the server or your particular installation.

The @FILE command is very useful in cases where we might want to generate data that's available in file. By using the || and == characters as a delimiter we could interface with any external database application.

For example: Let's say we have a text file called headline_news.txt that is external to our database system. This file is constantly being updated with up-to-the-minute news items by another external system. We want to display these news items on our website for our visitors to see. How can we do that?

First, we might create a new Template Variable and set the display Widget to Ticker.

Unable to render embedded object: File (bind_2.gif) not found.

We then add the @FILE command inside the default value of the TV. This will point to where the headline_news.txt is located in our example.

Unable to render embedded object: File (bind_3.gif) not found.

Each headline in the headline_news.txt file is separated by a new-line (lf or \n) character. We can use the Delimiter property of the Ticker to separate each item and display them one at a time. We'll also change the background color of the ticker using the Style property.

Unable to render embedded object: File (bind_4.gif) not found.

Note: The \n character is used to represent the new line character

 

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