SaveAsAscii

Description

Saves the contents of a DataWindow or DataStore into a standard ANSI text file.

Applies to

DataWindow type

Method applies to

PowerBuilder

DataWindow control, DataStore object

Syntax

PowerBuilder

long dwcontrol.SaveAsAscii ( string filename {, 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.

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

SaveAsAscii always saves the file with ANSI encoding. To save to a file with a different encoding, use SaveAsFormattedText.

SaveAsAscii is like SaveAs with the Text SaveAsType. However, unlike SaveAs, SaveAsAscii 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, SaveAsAscii saves Customer ID to the text file, whereas SaveAs saves cust_id. SaveAsAscii 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 ANSI encoding with the ampersand (&) as the separator character, and single quotes (') as the characters used to wrap values. A new line (~r~n) is automatically inserted at each line ending. Computed columns are included with the saved information:

dw_Quarter.SaveAsAscii("H:\Q2\RESULTS.TXT","&","'")

See also