Editing FileExistence

The most portable way to test for the existence of a file is to simply try and read from the file. {{{ awk function exists(file, dummy, ret) { ret=0; if ( (getline dummy < file) >=0 ) { # file exists (possibly empty) and can be read ret = 1; close(file); } return ret; } }}} [ I've read reports that earlier versions of mawk would write to stderr as well as getline returning <0 -- is this still true? ] On Unix, you can probably use the `test' utility {{{ awk if (system("test -r " file) == 0) # file is readable else # file is not readable }}}

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This change is a minor edit.

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