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Programming >> Communication and Input/Output >> Can I print to a file?
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Can I print to a file?
Post by fisherhj on Aug 28th, 2012, 03:39am

I have written a small ephemeris program -- it generates planetary positions for various dates. Can I print the output to a text file instead of generating hard copy on my printer?

Re: Can I print to a file?
Post by admin on Aug 28th, 2012, 08:33am

on Aug 28th, 2012, 03:39am, fisherhj wrote:
I have written a small ephemeris program -- it generates planetary positions for various dates. Can I print the output to a text file instead of generating hard copy on my printer?

Certainly you can if the output is 'plain text'. The easiest way is probably to output to a file as well as to the screen, using *SPOOL:

Code:
      *SPOOL outputfile.txt
      PRINT "Output your data in the normal way"
      *SPOOL

If you want to output to a file instead of to the screen there are various approaches such as using *SPOOL in conjunction with VDU 21 and VDU 6:

Code:
      VDU 21
      *SPOOL c:\outputfile.txt
      PRINT "Output your data in the normal way"
      *SPOOL
      VDU 6

Or you could use PRINT# instead of PRINT:

Code:
      outfile% = OPENOUT("outputfile.txt")
      PRINT #outfile%, "Output your data directly to a file"
      BPUT #outfile%, 10
      CLOSE #outfile%

Or you could use *OUTPUT to redirect the output:

Code:
      outfile% = OPENOUT("outputfile.txt")
      OSCLI "OUTPUT " + STR$outfile%
      PRINT "Output your data in the normal way"
      *OUTPUT
      CLOSE #outfile%

Richard.
Re: Can I print to a file?
Post by fisherhj on Aug 28th, 2012, 2:59pm

Lovely! Many thanks
--Howard