Reading text-files is pretty straightforward. You don't even have to open a file in text-mode contrary to other languages. Just open the file and call 'REFILL' until it signals end-of-file (EOF):

     \ Example program. It reads a file line by line
     \ and prints it to the screen.

     256 string line               \ define string
     " readln.4th" line copy       \ make filename

     input open                    \ open file
     if                            \ if successfully opened
          input file               \ read from file

          begin
               refill              \ read a line
          while                    \ while EOF not found
               0 word              \ copy to pad
               type                \ print it
               cr                  \ terminate line
          repeat                   \ read next line

     else
          ." Could not open file" cr quit
     then                          \ print error message

You will find that if you run this program, it will print itself to the screen.

'REFILL' will return a non-zero value if EOF was *NOT* detected. By using the word '0=' you can invert this value. Finally, it will read Unix ASCII-files as well as DOS ASCII-files.