Using the <i class="emphasis">FileMode</i> Enumeration

Using the FileMode Enumeration

When you open a file with the FileStream class, you specify the file mode you want to use—for example, if you want to create a new file, you use the file mode FileMode.Create. The various possible file modes are part of the FileMode enumeration; you can find the members of this enumeration in Table 13.9.

Table 13.9: Members of the *FileMode* enumeration.
Member	Means
Append	Opens a file and moves to the end of the file (or creates a new file if the specified file doesn't exist). Note that you can only use FileMode.Append with FileAccess.Write.
Create	Creates a new file; if the file already exists, it is overwritten.
CreateNew	Creates a new file; if the file already exists, an IOException is thrown.
Open	Opens an existing file.
OpenOrCreate	Open a file if it exists; or create a new file.
Truncate	Open an existing file, and truncate it to zero length so you can write over its data.