SaveAsFormattedText

Description

Saves the contents of a DataWindow or DataStore into a standard text file with custom formatting.

Applies to

DataWindow type

Method applies to

PowerBuilder

DataWindow control, DataStore object

Syntax

PowerBuilder

long dwcontrol.SaveAsFormattedText ( string filename {, string encoding {, string separatorcharacter {,string quotecharacter {, string lineending {, boolean retainnewlinechar } } } } )

Argument

Description

dwcontrol

A reference to a DataWindow control or DataStore.

filename

A string whose value is the name of the file in which to save the contents.

encoding (optional)

Character encoding of the file to which the data is saved. If you do not specify an encoding parameter, the file is saved in ANSI format. Values are:

  • EncodingANSI! (default)

  • EncodingUTF8!

  • EncodingUTF16LE!

  • EncodingUTF16BE!

separatorcharacter (optional)

A string whose value is the character to be used to delimit values. If you omit separatorcharacter, the default is a tab character.

quotecharacter (optional)

A string whose value is the character to be used to wrap values. If you omit quotecharacter, the default is double quote.

lineending (optional)

A string whose value is placed at the end of each line. If you omit lineending, the default is a carriage return plus a newline character (~r~n).

retainnewlinechar (optional)

A boolean value that determines whether line feed and carriage return characters contained within the row are converted to white space. Values are:

  • True – line feed and carriage return characters within the row are not converted to white space

  • False (default) – line feed and carriage return characters within the row are converted to white space

Returns

Returns 1 if it succeeds and –1 if an error occurs.

Usage

SaveAsFormattedText is like SaveAs with the Text SaveAsType. However, unlike SaveAs, SaveAsFormattedText formats the text and saves column headers in the form in which they are displayed in the DataWindow instead of as the column name. For example, if the heading for the cust_id column is Customer ID, SaveAsFormattedText saves Customer ID to the text file, whereas SaveAs saves cust_id. SaveAsFormattedText also saves computed fields allows you to customize formats in the file. If you do not specify custom settings, values are wrapped in double quotes and separated by tabs. A newline character (~r~n) is placed at the end of each line. Line feed and carriage return characters within each row are converted to white space.

PowerBuilder assigns a cell for each DataWindow object (which can include computed columns and group totals). If a cell is empty, PowerBuilder puts the quotecharacter between the separatorcharacter in the output file.

Examples

Example 1

This statement saves the contents of dw_Quarter to the file H:\Q2\RESULTS.TXT. The saved file uses UTF-16LE encoding with the ampersand (&) as the separator character, single quote (') as the character used to wrap values and the default line ending (~r~n). Computed columns are included with the saved information:

dw_Quarter.SaveAsFormattedText("H:\Q2\RESULTS.TXT", EncodingUTF16LE!, "&", "'")

See also