Report detail section spacing problem

[Mike Vance]

I want to design a report which can be saved as a text file. Based on a set, the main table 'produces' a header text line; there are then various individual text lines in the detail section on the number of filtered records in the linked table; and a footer text line containing totals from those individual lines.

The problem is that each of the lines in the detail section of the report is 773 characters long. Various fields are used for the first 157 characters plus 14 other sections of 44 characters each- again extracted from comprised of various filtered fields.

I can probably achieve the 773 characters in one text line by increasing the report width but I have to split the detail line into various calculated text fields because the size of these is restricted to 256 characters - can't use a calculated Memo fields since this is not an available option.

I experimented with one field of 157 characters and some more of 44 characters each. This creates a problem of spacing between the fields because about 5 spaces appear between each of them in the final text file and I don't know how to overcome this in the report line design.

Obviously I could prepare the file in xbasic using write_line etc routines but the coding is complicated and difficult to make error free. I also tried a summarise operation for the header/footer line details (works well) and a crosstab operation to simplify collecting the data needed for the detail lines but I would need 14 of these creating different tables due to differing filter problems!

Has anyone any suggestions please, preferably to help me overcome the spacing problem mentioned above? Mike Vance

[Cheryl Lemire]

RE: Report detail section spacing problem

Mike,

Could you attach a snapshot of the text file you get now and perhaps show us that way what is wrong with it and how you want to change it? Maybe even a pic of the report in design mode? Forgive me for my ignorance, but I was not aware that any text file could hold 773 characters in 'one' line so that it is legible so I am sure I am misunderstanding exactly what you are trying to accomplish.

Is it the formatting of the text file that you are trying to adjust? Or are you doing something else with this text file afterwards that is not giving you the end results you are looking for?

Good luck
Cheryl

[Keith Hubert]

RE: Report detail section spacing problem

Hi Mike

Have you tried alltrim(field_name)? This will remove all blanks.

Regards

Keith Hubert

Guild Member
London.

[Mike Vance]

RE: Report detail section spacing problem

Cheryl - the text file is required by out local income tax authority and contains confidential data so I cannot send you an example. I have used Visual Basic many times in the past to create the text file with line lengths of 773 characters so there is no problem about that, only how to do it in the easiest way with Alpha Five. Mike

[Mike Vance]

RE: Report detail section spacing problem

Keith - alltrim won't help here. It's the spacing between the fields of the reports which creates the spaces. If I can't prevent these happening I will have to modify the text file created by the report. This would be painstaking and a waste of time. I could code the text file lines in xbasic without going through the report design at all and then I could make sure there were no spaces. Mike

[Doug Page]

RE: Report detail section spacing problem

Hi Mike,

I have done many "exports" of data in text files and have found the best way is in XBasic as you described.

Xbasic is not as difficult as you may think for doing this as you just concatenate all the fields you want to a temp variable and then do the one write for each line.

Open Alpha file
Open text file
Set index if needed
Go to first record
Loop while not EOF
Concatenate fields to a variable
Write line to text file
next record
Close text file
Close Alpha file

HTH
Doug

[Mike Vance]

RE: Report detail section spacing problem

Hi Doug - Thanks for your comments and xbasic code example. I have experimented with that type of routine and think I must go along that route although I was trying to avoid it because of the large number of variables, DBSums and other 'information gathering code' needed. The Report was an attempt to save a bit of work. Your help appreciated. Thanks. Mike

[G Gabriel]

RE: Report detail section spacing problem

Mike:
If vertical allign is of no concern, combine your fields in RTF. That should take care of the problem.
Gabe

[Mike Vance]

RE: Report detail section spacing problem

Gabe - I did think of trying RTF but never got round to it. Will give it a go. Thanks for the suggestion. Mike.

[Mike Vance]

RE: Report detail section spacing problem

I have since used a similar routine to Doug's to write lines to a text file. Cheryl appears to be right as far as Alpha Five variables are concerned since I could only get 188 characters on each line, although when concatentated my variable was 700 + characters.

There is no such problem in Visual Basic! The following code shows how to achieve large width text files in VB6.

Visual Basic routine to write line to a text file:-

TempFileNum=FreeFile
TempFileName="C:\atextfilename.txt"
Open TempFileName for Output as #TempFileNum
Print #TempFileNum, tempstring 'tempstring can be 700 characters plus - lots of these lines can be written in a loop
Close #TempFileNum

Visual Basic routine to read the text file:-

Open TempFileName for Input as TempFileNum
Multi-LineTextbox. text = Input$(LOF(TempFileNum), #TempFileNum)
Close #TempFileNum

Is there anyway Alpha Five can cope with this - I can't use RTF variables (not possible). I know I should have tested this before spending weeks on my project! Help please. Mike

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Report detail section spacing problem

Mike,

Is the problem encountered when you try to use a report layout to view / print the large variable? Or, are you saying that you cannot create the text file in the first place?

-- tom

[Mike Vance]

RE: Report detail section spacing problem

Tom - I can create the text file without problems but each line in it is a maximum of 188 characters or thereabouts because the Alpha Five variables won't take any more characters. Mike.

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Report detail section spacing problem

Mike,

I'm very inexperienced in using BLOB variables, but they might be the key to a solution for you here.

Here's a script that will build a text file (on floppy) that
has a single line in it which contains your name repeated 50 times.

dim bb as B 'blob
bb = space(1000) 'size it larger than largest string on any one line
blob_size = bb.size()
trace.writeln(str(blob_size))
for n = 1 to 50
bb.pokec((n*11)-10 ,"Mike Vance ") 'Notice text string has 11 characters in it.
next n
text_size = 11 * n 'keep track where last byte was written
file_pointer = file.create("A:" + chr(92)+"output.txt",FILE_RW_SHARED)

for i = 1 to text_size
file_pointer.write(bb.peekc(i,1))
next i


file_pointer.flush()
file_pointer.close()

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Report detail section spacing problem

Mike,

I went back to test the thesis that we can't use long character strings, and found that they work just fine.

dim long_string as C
long_string = replicate("Tom Cone Jr ",60)
trace.writeln(long_string)

file_pointer = file.create("A:" + chr(92)+"output.txt",FILE_RW_SHARED)
file_pointer.write_line(long_string)
file_pointer.flush()
file_pointer.close()


Perhaps there's an error in your script that is causing your string to be truncated ?

Working with the string like this is much much easier than working with blobs.

-- tom

[Mike Vance]

RE: Report detail section spacing problem

Thanks Tom. Will 'play' with a Blob. Mike