Write a String into a text file

Whenever I have to write data into a text file following function has proven to fulfill my needs.

Source Code

In case you want to export a file in Unicode encoding you just hand True for the parameter isUtf16Le, which will cause the FileSystemObject to encode the file in UTF-16 with low byte order mark (little endian).

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' @Author - Alexander Bolte
' @ChangeDate - 2014-10-08
' @Description - Writes a given text as a new line into a text file available at given file path.
' If target text file is not existing yet, it will be created before writing given String.
' If target text file is existing already, given data will be appended.
' @Param fileNam - target text file full path.
' @Param newLine - String to append in given target text file.
' @Param isUtf16Le - a boolean indicating if a text file should be Unicode (UTF-16-Little Endian) or ASCII encoded.
' True means a file should be UTF-16 Little Endian encoded.
Public Function writeLineToTextFile(ByVal fileNam As String, ByVal newLine As String, ByVal isUtf16Le As Boolean)
    Dim fs As New Scripting.FileSystemObject
    Dim ts As Scripting.TextStream
    
    If fs.FileExists(fileNam) Then
        Set ts = fs.OpenTextFile(fileNam, ForAppending, True, isUtf16Le)
    Else
        Set ts = fs.CreateTextFile(fileNam, True, isUtf16Le)
    End If
    
    If Not ts Is Nothing Then
        Call ts.WriteLine(newLine)
    End If
    
    ts.Close
    Set ts = Nothing
    Set fs = Nothing
End Function

If you however have to export something in UTF-8 or other encodings I suggest to use the following method.

It utilizes the ADODB API in order to create a UTF-8 encoded text stream. The byte order mark is removed from this stream before it is written into a file.

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Sub WriteUTF8WithoutBOM()
    Dim UTFStream As Object
    Set UTFStream = CreateObject("adodb.stream")
    UTFStream.Type = adTypeText
    UTFStream.Mode = adModeReadWrite
    UTFStream.Charset = "UTF-8"
    UTFStream.LineSeparator = adLF
    UTFStream.Open
    UTFStream.WriteText "This is an unicode/UTF-8 test.", adWriteLine
    UTFStream.WriteText "First set of special characters: öäåñüûú€", adWriteLine
    UTFStream.WriteText "Second set of special characters: qwertzuiopõúasdfghjkléáûyxcvbnm\|Ä€Í÷×äðÐ[]í³£;?¤>#&@{}<;>*~¡^¢°²`ÿ´½¨¸0", adWriteLine
 
    UTFStream.Position = 3 'skip BOM
 
    Dim BinaryStream As Object
    Set BinaryStream = CreateObject("adodb.stream")
    BinaryStream.Type = adTypeBinary
    BinaryStream.Mode = adModeReadWrite
    BinaryStream.Open
 
    'Strips BOM (first 3 bytes)
    UTFStream.CopyTo BinaryStream
 
    'UTFStream.SaveToFile "d:\adodb-stream1.txt", adSaveCreateOverWrite
    UTFStream.Flush
    UTFStream.Close
 
    BinaryStream.SaveToFile "C:\users\wjx130\upload\test_text_export_utf-8.txt", adSaveCreateOverWrite
    BinaryStream.Flush
    BinaryStream.Close
End Sub

Referenced API

This function references the following APIs

The following resource provided me with the source I needed to create UTF-8 encoded text files without BOM.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4143524/can-i-export-excel-data-with-utf-8-without-bom

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