Using STRTRAN() to Add Carriage Returns to ASCII File (117219)

SUMMARY

In FoxPro for Macintosh, the COPY TO TYPE DELIMITED command creates a delimited ASCII file, with each record terminated by a linefeed only. Some programs require a carriage return as the record terminator. If the ASCII file is placed in a memo field with APPEND MEMO, the STRTRAN() function can be used to replace the linefeed character with a carriage return character. COPY MEMO can then be used to create a new file with carriage returns.

MORE INFORMATION

The following code illustrates the use of STRTRAN() to add carriage return characters.

   CREATE TABLE memonly (textfile M)
   SELECT 0
   USE SYS(2004)+"\tutorial\customer.dbf"
   COPY TO test.txt TYPE DELIMITED FOR RECNO() < 5
   SELECT memonly
   APPEND BLANK
   APPEND MEMO memonly.textfile FROM test.txt OVERWRITE
   REPLACE memonly.textfile WITH STRTRAN(textfile,CHR(10),CHR(13))
   COPY MEMO memonly.textfile FROM test2.txt

Open both files in Microsoft Word. TEST.TXT contains a box character at the end of each record. TEST2.TXT starts a new line where the box characters used to be in TEST.TXT.

CHR(10) is the ASCII code for the linefeed character and CHR(13) is the ASCII character for the carriage return. If both the carriage return and the linefeed character are necessary use the following REPLACE command instead.

   REPLACE textfile WITH STRTRAN(textfile,CHR(10),CHR(13)+CHR(10))

For information about using low-level file commands to export data to a delimited ASCII file, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

115418 Appending from a Delimited ASCII File Using Low-Level File I/O