Default file location for regular file and scratch file

[philippe_bernier]

Hi,

I have an older program that open a file without specifying a path name. I know I can use the "DEFAULTFILE" specifier to indicate where to create-it. But, is there a function available to get the Windows Temp folder I can use with this?

Also, when I open a file of type 'SCRATCH', I know the program opens a file of a random name but for some reasons, the file is open in the root of the C drive. This drive is typically set as read only for regular user Windows account (especially with Windows Vista / 7). Why isn't the scratch file created in the Windows temp by default and is there a way to force the scracth file to be created in a specific folder? Can I use the same trick as above (DEFAULTFILE=)?

Thank You

Philippe Bernier

[Steven_L_Intel1]

You can use the GET_ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE intrinsic to retrieve the value of "TEMP", which points to your temp folder. An undocumented feature is that you can use environment variables in the FILE= specificer of OPEN, like this:

OPEN (1,FILE="%TEMP%\somefile.dat")

I don't think this works in DEFAULTFILE.

Scratch files are opened in the temp directory, so perhaps TEMP (or TMP - I don't remember which it uses first) points to C:\?