Passing a string of 108 characters

[MarionD]

I'm trying to write a text file as an export spec. Can anyone help me on this:

I need to export exactly 108 Characters.

Left(Format(recs!(Buchungstext), 108)) works fine as long as the text is longer than 108 Characters. When it is shorter, I need to fill out the 108 spaces as blanks, so tha the string is 108 characters.
Thanks so much
Marion

 

[chergh]

Something like this should work:

dim mySTR as string
dim i as integer

if len(Format(recs!(Buchungstext))) > 108 then
Left(Format(recs!(Buchungstext), 108))
else
mySTR = (Format(recs!(Buchungstext)))
for i = len(Format(recs!(Buchungstext))) to 108
mySTR = mySTR & " "
next i
end if

 

[RuralGuy]

I would think that:
Left(recs!(Buchungstext) & Space(108), 108)
would work as well.

 

[chergh]

Ooh never seen the space function before and certainly better than using my code.

 

[MarionD]

Thanks to both for the replies.

Would the space not use the Text + space 108? That is if the text were 50 Characters long would the end result not be 50 + 108 instead of just 108 including the 50 (50 + space(58))

 

[ByteMyzer]

MarionD, if you use the expression provided by RuralGuy, you will get the required result. Let's examine the Left function:

Left Function

Returns a Variant (String) containing a specified number of characters from the left side of a string.

Syntax

Left(string, length)

The Left function syntax has these named arguments:

Part Description
string Required. String expression from which the leftmost characters are returned. If string contains Null, Null is returned.

length Required; Variant (Long). Numeric expression indicating how many characters to return. If 0, a zero-length string ("") is returned. If greater than or equal to the number of characters in string, the entire string is returned.

Thus:

Left(recs!(Buchungstext) & Space(108), 108)

...takes the concatenated result of recs!(Buchungstext) & Space(108), and only returns the leftmost 108 characters.

 

[MarionD]

Thank you very very much for the explanation - it really helps when one understands what you're doing!

Marion

 

[MarionD]

oops! another problem! If there is nothing in the field, I still need 108 spaces to be returned not a zero length string. Could one get round thid with the nz function somehow? Although I dont want a 0 returned?

 

[Dennisk]

nz() does not have to return a 0 as the second parameter is optional and for numeric fields is usually set to 0 and strings ""

 

[RuralGuy]

The code I supplied will return 108 spaces if the field is null.

 

[MarionD]

Thanks! You're my hero!

 

[RuralGuy]

Glad I could help.