Hi,

How can i create a report that writes records with fixed lenght.
The reportgen. cuttes the blancs at the end of a line.
I must create lines with 128 char lenght. (at the 129 a car. return)

If you have position 128 as 'spare', fill it with some special character (example # or ~) in the report layout. That will give you a fixed length output.

Alternatively, put the special character in position 129, and then once the file is created, you can cut off that position.

thanks for your quick answer.
As it is a file for a bank i can not put something i want in the 128 position.
Using your second solution demands a different treatment on an nt and a unix machine. I suppose that you want to cut the 129 position with a unix or nt/W2000 script/command.

Have you though of using the seq.* commands to write a text file instead of using a report? You can then write out as many characters per line as you want. That is how we have done things like this in the past.

Hi,

yes i know how to write a seq file.
But it is a session in baan tfcmg4260s000 which permits to work with 2 reports where 1 is a file (electronic banking).
So than you lose all the functionality of the report.

Hi Sweetie,

Did you consider the option of using the fixed variables

Fixed variables

A string variable can be declared as fixed so that its current length always equals the maximum length. For example:

STRING name(10) FIXED

name = "andrew" | the string is always filled up with spaces

The keyword FIXED is applicable to one-dimensional strings only. Multi-dimensional string arrays are always fixed and do not need to be declared with the keyword FIXED.

In a test I ran, the report compiler automatically inserted a strip$() in an assignment, effectively negating my attempt to use a fixed length string.

ed is wright.
:)

How about reading the output of the report generated and writing it back with fixed width? Use seq.* functions for this to keep it o/s independant.

If the report is not too complex and is just printing some lines of text, info, or values,

you might consider to use the spool functions

How about creating a new device?

Device: ASCIF128
Description: Rewrite ASCII File - Page width 128
Device Type: Rewrite file
4GL Program: otccomconv
Argument: ASCII
Path: Fileout
<yes>: Change Output file allowed
Page Length: 55

Create a 3GL script "tccomconv" with the following code in it:

long ret | general return variable
long fp1 | file pointer for input file
long fp2 | file pointer for output file

string tmp.file(1024) | input file - created by Baan
string line.i(128) fixed | variable to hold a line of data

function main()
{
tmp.file = creat.tmp.file$(bse.tmp.dir$())
wait.and.activate("ttstpconv", argv$(1), tmp.file, argv$(3), argv$(4))
fp1 = seq.open(tmp.file, "r")
fp2 = seq.open(argv$(2), "w")

while not seq.gets(line.i, 128, fp1)
|That line.i is set to fixed should do the trick.
ret = seq.puts(line.i, fp2)
endwhile

ret = seq.close(fp1)
ret = seq.close(fp2)
ret = seq.unlink(tmp.file)
}
Add some error handling to this code before using it. Should you choose to use this route, would appreciate your final code for out Code & Utilities forum.

Hi Vamsi,

the idea of reading again the reportfile and writing it with seq of fixed length 128 seems a very good idea.
I will give it a try.
Keep you informed:cool: