Zero-length MXL files

[W. Pickett]

Hi,

I'm attempting to understand an application I may one day "inherit" in
ASP.NET and Flash. I've been searching but can't find out the answer to
this, so if you have a pointer or want to explain I'd really appreciate
it, thanks.

The site has hundreds of empty xml files in directories in different
sections named like this: section/cache/file-2005-20-09.xml. I'm sure
this is one of those "try to read xyz20050101.xml and if it doesn't exist
do this and if it does and is zero..." etc. Am I even close?

Can someone tell me something about this and does it have to do with the
server cache?
thanks in advance

[Pascal Schmitt]

Hello!

The site has hundreds of empty xml files in directories in different
sections named like this: section/cache/file-2005-20-09.xml. I'm sure
this is one of those "try to read xyz20050101.xml and if it doesn't exist
do this and if it does and is zero..." etc. Am I even close?

I don't know how that application uses a folder called cache - you have
to ask the creator...

You can use System.IO to check the files:

if( File.Exists( filename ) ){ // file does exist
FileStream fs = File.Open( filename );
if( fs.Length > 5 ) // file is not empty
// use the stream to create XmlTextReader or XmlDocument
else
// file is too short, likely to be empty.
}
else
// file does not exist
--
Pascal Schmitt

[W. Pickett]

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 19:06:22 +0200, Pascal Schmitt wrote:

I don't know how that application uses a folder called cache - you have to
ask the creator...

Actually my question is simpler than that: Is this guy nuts, or this a
standard way to accomplish some particular task in .NET? We may have used
zero-length files in the assembly language programming days, but it seems
like an odd way to go now, especially on a platform as powerful is this.