Blank spaces in Freebasic

midgemaster · Post by **midgemaster** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 4:45 am

Hi there

In Freebasic, if reading a file line by line, blank lines seems to be ignored and the following line is used instead. If I replace a blank line with "", everything works perfectly.

Is this the way it is supposed to work?

Thanks

Midgemaster

T'lon Nanaki · Post by **T'lon Nanaki** » Sun Jun 28, 2009 3:40 pm

could you try to explain what your getting at with a bit more detail...
are you trying to read a source file, a file created through FB, my mothers recipe for pea soup? curiosity kills and Im 6ft under so dig away!

midgemaster · Post by **midgemaster** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 1:42 am

Hi T'lon

I'm trying to read sequential files created by QBasic. Each line in the files has only one piece of data. Part of an example file looks like this :

.
.
PETONG (GB)

1
0
BOLSHOI Ballet
.
.

When the code gets to the blank between 'PETONG (GB) and '1', Freebasic seems to ignore it and picks up the '1' instead. If I replace the clank line with "" it works fine.

I hope that's clearer.

Midgemaster

Post by **burger2227** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 10:56 am

Reading with what? INPUT, LINE INPUT, GET?

How was the file created? With PRINT?

midgemaster · Post by **midgemaster** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 11:45 am

Hi there

Reading with Input in Freebasic. Created with Print in QBasic.

Midgemaster

Post by **burger2227** » Mon Jun 29, 2009 4:24 pm

Why don't you consider using WRITE # to create the file? It allows you to put string and number values on one line of a file separated by commas.
INPUT # always stops at a comma no matter where it is! Even in a string.
So the best way to read a printed file would be LINE INPUT # anyhow.

You don't need to convert number strings back using the following method:

WRITE #1, person$, score%, DATE$, TIME$

To read it use INPUT #1, player$, last%, Day$, Hour$

The number of values must match each statement and the variable types.

Then format the values any way you want on the screen.

midgemaster · Post by **midgemaster** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 2:16 am

Hi there

Yes, WRITE would do the trick.

The problem is that I have some 2,500,000 legacy files created using PRINT in QBasic, and peppered with blanks. Naturally I don't wish to have to re-create them.

Midgemaster

T'lon Nanaki · Post by **T'lon Nanaki** » Tue Jun 30, 2009 11:37 am

well, I think im stumped on a solution for this sence i really never came across this particulare problem before. I tried to recreate it by making a dummy file for FB to read and the blank lines came up as 0's for me when it was read using input#, I even tryed to place a bunch of commas and got extra 0's. then agian it might be that i wrote the file in notepad and not in QB.
perhaps you should try using line input# an using val() to convert string numbers into integer/single, either that or running a code that opens your files and places a 0 or "" at each blank line.

this small code will do that(tested it myself too!)

Code: Select all

Dim As String retstr
Open (unformmated file name) For Input As #1
Open (formatted file name) For Output As #2


Do Until Eof(1)
	Line input #1,retstr
	If retstr="" Then
		Print #2,"0"
	Else
		Print #2,retstr		
	EndIf		
Loop

if you plug this into a code that gets all files in a directory (assuming that your 2million+ files are all located in one place) you can format all the files in one run. but be a good programmer and back them up first just in case

midgemaster · Post by **midgemaster** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 6:25 am

Hi T'lon

Unfortunately the files are spread over literally hundreds of directories so working through them might not be practical.

I see the forum provides the facility to send e-mails. Do you know whether attachments are permitted? If so, I could e-mail you with an example file attached (the files are small).

Midge

T'lon Nanaki · Post by **T'lon Nanaki** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 2:39 pm

I really don't know if the email capablities here allow attachments sense I stick to just trying to help out with problems posted on the forums.
how ever if you like you can send your attachment to my yahoo mail at
talon_nanaki at yahoo dot com, just keep in mind that I don't claim to know all(that would be silly to say) and I might not be able to help.

Post by **burger2227** » Wed Jul 01, 2009 2:54 pm

Clicking on Email button will use your Email service. NOT the person's you are emailing! Mine uses my Outlook Express.

lp0cua0 · Post by **lp0cua0** » Wed Nov 11, 2009 6:00 pm

First, you need to find out what the 'blank' line actually is, acsii wise.

It may be as simple as a CR w/o a LF, in which case you could test for that, then shell out to u2d (unix to dos, takes care of cr to cr/lf), then finish the run you need.

Or, you could:

Open xyz$ for binary as #1

then do some scanning/reencoding to convert whatever the blank line is to a regular cr/lf and continue on.

Me, I'd add a header or a footer to each file as it's processed, then check for it on opening a file, discard the header/footer if present, and continue.
If the header/footer isn't present, then pass the file through the 'recoder' routine, add header/footer, and write file back out.
That should start to save quite a few machine cycles as the files slowly get worked through. That's just me though.

Pete's QBASIC Site