Writing a prn style file in vb .net

[simonc]

I want to output an ascii file of numbers with all the
figures in ordered right justified columns, rather like an
Excel "Formatted Space Delimited" .prn file.

I can't find any reference to right justifying in any of
the format options.

Grateful for any advice on how to do this.

[Jeremy Cowles]

Re: Writing a prn style file in vb .net

"simonc" <sc@mail.com> wrote in message
news:095401c388 4e$e34c9760$a30 1280a@phx.gbl.. .[color=blue]
> I want to output an ascii file of numbers with all the
> figures in ordered right justified columns, rather like an
> Excel "Formatted Space Delimited" .prn file.
>
> I can't find any reference to right justifying in any of
> the format options.
>
> Grateful for any advice on how to do this.[/color]

There are several ways to accomplish this. One would be to use an ODBC
connection, or a Structure Object with fixed lenght strings, but the
quickest & dirtiest would be to just pad the numbers and write them out as a
string. You can do this by using a String or StringBuilder object
(StringBuilder is faster for large files) and the String.PadLeft( )
function. It should look something like this when you are done:

Dim FilePath as String = "C:\test.tx t"
Dim FieldCount as Integer = 10
Dim RowCount as Integer = 13
Dim Data(RowCount, FieldCount) as Integer
Dim MaxFieldWidth as Integer = 10
Dim i, x as Integer
Dim s as New System.Text.Str ingBuilder((Max FieldWidth * FieldCount *
RowCount) + (RowCount * 2))

For i = 0 to RowCount

For x = 0 to FieldCount
'// write each field out as a fixed length
s.Append(data(i , x).ToString.Pad Left(MaxFieldWi dth)
Next

'// Add a new line to indicate the next record
s.Append(Contro lChars.CrLf)
Next

'// now just write out the string to a text file
Dim ofs As New System.IO.FileS tream(FilePath, IO.FileMode.Ope nOrCreate,
IO.FileAccess.W rite)
Dim swr As New System.IO.Strea mWriter(ofs)

swr.Write(s.ToS tring)

Call swr.Close( )
Call ofs.Close( )

HTH,
Jeremy

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

Re: Writing a prn style file in vb .net

"simonc" <sc@mail.com> scripsit:[color=blue]
> I want to output an ascii file of numbers with all the
> figures in ordered right justified columns, rather like an
> Excel "Formatted Space Delimited" .prn file.
>
> I can't find any reference to right justifying in any of
> the format options.[/color]

You can use 'String.PadLeft ' to fill the space on the left side of a
string to a certain length.

--
Herfried K. Wagner
MVP · VB Classic, VB.NET
<http://www.mvps.org/dotnet>

[Kirk]

Re: Writing a prn style file in vb .net

you can use the String.Format method
within each {} the first number is the agument number, the second number is
the column width (pos is right align, neg is left align.)

here is a sample (you might want to change you font to a fixed width like
courier to see it properly)

Dim str As String
str = String.Format(" {0,-13} {1,15}", txtCol1.Text, txtCol2.Text)
Me.txtResult.Te xt &= vbNewLine & str

Kirk Graves

"Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]" <hirf-spam-me-here@gmx.at> wrote in message
news:O%23lCEeGi DHA.1684@TK2MSF TNGP12.phx.gbl. ..[color=blue]
> "simonc" <sc@mail.com> scripsit:[color=green]
> > I want to output an ascii file of numbers with all the
> > figures in ordered right justified columns, rather like an
> > Excel "Formatted Space Delimited" .prn file.
> >
> > I can't find any reference to right justifying in any of
> > the format options.[/color]
>
> You can use 'String.PadLeft ' to fill the space on the left side of a
> string to a certain length.
>
> --
> Herfried K. Wagner
> MVP · VB Classic, VB.NET
> http://www.mvps.org/dotnet[/color]

[Jeremy Cowles]

Re: Writing a prn style file in vb .net

"Kirk" <mcsdsmurf@hotm ail.com> wrote in message
news:%23erJO7Qi DHA.1864@tk2msf tngp13.phx.gbl. ..[color=blue]
> you can use the String.Format method
> within each {} the first number is the agument number, the second number[/color]
is[color=blue]
> the column width (pos is right align, neg is left align.)
>
> here is a sample (you might want to change you font to a fixed width like
> courier to see it properly)
>
> Dim str As String
> str = String.Format(" {0,-13} {1,15}", txtCol1.Text, txtCol2.Text)
> Me.txtResult.Te xt &= vbNewLine & str[/color]


nice solution.