Writing Files in OpenSCAD

Here’s the translation of the Go code to OpenSCAD, with explanations in Markdown format suitable for Hugo:

Our file writing operations in OpenSCAD follow similar patterns to those we’ve seen earlier for reading.

// To start, here's how to dump a string into a file.
content = "hello\nOpenSCAD\n";
write_to_file("/tmp/dat1", content);

// For more granular writes, we'll create a custom function.
module write_file(filename) {
    // It's good practice to close the file after writing.
    file = fopen(filename, "w");
    children();
    fclose(file);
}

// You can write strings as you'd expect.
write_file("/tmp/dat2") {
    fputs(file, "some\n");
    fputs(file, "writes\n");
    fputs(file, "buffered\n");
}

// OpenSCAD doesn't have built-in buffering, so we'll simulate it.
function buffered_write(file, content, buffer_size=1024) =
    let(
        chunks = [for(i = [0:buffer_size:len(content)-1]) 
                  substr(content, i, buffer_size)]
    )
    [for(chunk = chunks) fputs(file, chunk)];

write_file("/tmp/dat3") {
    buffered_write(file, "This is a longer string that we're writing in a buffered manner.\n");
}

echo("Files have been written. Check their contents.");

In this OpenSCAD script:

1. We use the write_to_file() function to write a simple string to a file.

2. We create a custom write_file module that opens a file, executes its child operations, and then closes the file.

3. We demonstrate writing multiple strings to a file using fputs().

4. We simulate buffered writing by creating a buffered_write function that breaks the content into chunks before writing.

OpenSCAD doesn’t have built-in file synchronization or flushing mechanisms, so those concepts are omitted.

To check the contents of the written files, you would need to look at them outside of OpenSCAD:

$ cat /tmp/dat1
hello
OpenSCAD

$ cat /tmp/dat2
some
writes
buffered

$ cat /tmp/dat3
This is a longer string that we're writing in a buffered manner.

Note that OpenSCAD’s file I/O capabilities are more limited compared to general-purpose programming languages. It’s primarily designed for 3D modeling, so complex file operations are not its strong suit.

Next, we’ll explore how to apply some of these file I/O ideas to other areas of OpenSCAD scripting.