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Re: Opening a .DAT file

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On Tue, 13 Mar 2012 04:14:53 +1100, DonH wrote:

> "Auric__" <not.my.real@email.address> wrote in message 
> news:XnsA012B7D72EAACauricauricauricauric@88.198.244.100...
>> DonH wrote:
>>
>>> Is this possible, to view contents on-screen?
>>>   QBasic enables data to be stored in a Sequential file, and you can use
>>> .TXT or .DAT as the storage unit.  But only .DAT is possible for storage
>>> as a Random Access file.
>>
>> Solving specifically this problem, you can use QBasic to read in the data
>> from the .dat file, then write it out to something else, e.g. a CSV file.
>> Something like this:
>>
>>  TYPE mydatatype
>>    a AS LONG
>>    b AS SINGLE
>>    c AS STRING * 30
>>  END TYPE
>>  DIM x AS mydatatype
>>  OPEN "foo.dat" FOR RANDOM AS 1
>>  OPEN "foo.csv" FOR OUTPUT AS 2
>>  WHILE NOT EOF(1)
>>    GET #1, , x
>>    WRITE #2, x.a, x.b, RTRIM$(x.c)
>>  WEND
>>  CLOSE
>>
>> (You'll need to tweak this to get the right type and number of fields, and
>> the correct size of any strings.)
>>
>> -- 
>> Sometimes I wish I'd held on to some of my illusions;
>> life's pretty bleak sometimes without them.
> 
> # Thanks for the TYPE program; similar examples I have already tried, only 
> to find that this facility did not seem available to me - until I removed 
> line numbers!
>    It was only when experimenting with another relatively modern statement 
> ie. SELECT CASE that the QBasic error message tipped me off; it too won't 
> work with line numbers present.
>   Incidentally, what does CSV represent?

CSV stands for comma separated values. A file that has this structure will
contain values or data fields separated by commas. Further to this, if the
field contains a comma as aprt of it's data, the field is enclosed in
quotes. Further information can be found here;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values

The advantage of a CSV file is that fields can be of variable size, and the
data format is somewhat universal, although one needs to be a bit careful
as no true standard has been formally established.

-- 
HK

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Opening a .DAT file "DonH" <donlhumphries@bigpond.com> - 2012-03-11 06:39 +1100
  Re: Opening a .DAT file "Auric__" <not.my.real@email.address> - 2012-03-11 01:04 +0000
    Re: Opening a .DAT file "DonH" <donlhumphries@bigpond.com> - 2012-03-13 04:14 +1100
      Re: Opening a .DAT file H-Man <Spam@bites.fs> - 2012-03-12 12:25 -0600
      Re: Opening a .DAT file ralph <nt_consulting64@yahoo.net> - 2012-03-12 13:28 -0500
  Re: Opening a .DAT file Todd Vargo <tlvargo@sbcglobal.netz> - 2012-03-11 09:45 -0500
    Re: Opening a .DAT file "DonH" <donlhumphries@bigpond.com> - 2012-03-13 04:29 +1100
      Re: Opening a .DAT file Todd Vargo <tlvargo@sbcglobal.netz> - 2012-03-12 16:12 -0500
        Re: Opening a .DAT file "DonH" <donlhumphries@bigpond.com> - 2012-03-14 05:47 +1100
          Re: Opening a .DAT file Todd Vargo <tlvargo@sbcglobal.netz> - 2012-03-13 17:18 -0500
            Re: Opening a .DAT file H-Man <Spam@bites.fs> - 2012-03-13 15:38 -0600
          Re: Opening a .DAT file "R.Wieser" <address@not.available> - 2012-03-15 22:48 +0100

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