RE: Text on report

[Colin Williams <colin.williams@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sorry to ask a strange question, but why can't it just be put into a
file, and read in?

-----Original Message-----
From: L. S. Russell [mailto:leslier@datrek.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 21, 2000 1:28 PM
To: RPG400-L@midrange.com
Subject: Re: Text on report


Why not put the text in a user space and read the text into a variable
and write it out.

Joel Fritz wrote:
> 
> All you have to do with the array is make it arbitrarily 
large (enough to
> hold the text any way) and mark the end with a delimiter like 
'//end' or
> something equally creative.  Once you start thinking in terms 
of control
> codes, it's like Bank Street Writer or Text 38 all over 
again--possibilities
> are limitless.<G>  Condition the loop on finding the end 
marker.  It does
> involve incrementing the array index  manually and watching 
for overflow,
> though.  Just having gone through a round of sending out 
batches of e-mail
> with the text in a file, I can see some advantages to the 
array.  You can
> edit the text and get AS/400 WYSIWYG.
> 
> 'Course, if you put the text in a source member, you can 
actually edit it
> with Text 38.<g>
> 
> Again, it's a matter of taste, and whether the text is likely 
to change.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: bmorris@ca.ibm.com [mailto:bmorris@ca.ibm.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 20, 2000 4:02 PM
> To: RPG400-L@midrange.com
> Subject: Re: Text on report
> 
> >Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 11:44:41 -0700
> >From: Jim Langston <jlangston@conexfreight.com>
> >
> >I have a report to generate that has quite a bit of text on it.
> >A whole paragraph, basically.
> >
> >My question is, how do you feel would be the best way to get
> >this long text data into my program to print on the page?
> >There are a number of ways I could do it, including puting
> >it in a file, then opening it and reading it a line at a
> >time into a variable and printing it out.  Or I could do a
> >Compile time array and stick it on the bottom of my program.
> > ...
> 
> Jim, unless you're absolutely positive you'll never want to to
> change the text, put it in a file, and just read it line by line.
> If you use an array, you have to worry about the exact number
> of lines (too many, and you get an error; too few, and you
> have to make sure you don't print a blank line).
> 
> I'm not sure what the folks suggesting named constants or EVAL
> had in mind, but it seems to me that if you code the text as
> a single long string, you would have to write extra code to
> re-separate it into lines.
> 
> >There is another type of array, I think, where I could
> >create the file and then load the array with the
> >information at run time from the file, though
> >I've never done that before.
> > ...
> 
> What you're referring to here is called a pre-run array.  These
> are ok for reading things like messages or month-names where the
> number of elements is well-defined, but for text that has a
> varying number of lines, they're awkward.
> 
> Barbara Morris
> 
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--
L. S. Russell Programmer/Analyst
Datrek Professional Bags, Inc.
2413 Industrial Drive
Springfield, TN. 37172
mailto:leslier@datrek.com
http://www.datrek.com
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