Syntax
TEXT [TO <VariableName> [ADDITIVE] [TEXTMERGE] [NOSHOW] [FLAGS nValue] [PRETEXT eExpression]]
TextLines
ENDTEXT
Arguments
| TextLines | Specifies text to send to the current output device. TextLines can consist of text, memory variables, array elements, expressions, functions, or any combination of these. Note X# evaluates expressions, functions, memory variables, and array elements specified with TextLines only if you set SET TEXTMERGE to ON and enclose them with the delimiters specified by SET TEXTMERGE DELIMITERS. If SET TEXTMERGE is OFF, Visual FoxPro outputs expressions, functions, memory variables, and array elements as string literals along with their delimiters. For example, X# evaluates and outputs the current date when you specify the DATE( ) function as TextLines only if SET TEXTMERGE is ON, and TextLines contains the function and the appropriate delimiters, such as <<DATE( )>>. If SET TEXTMERGE is OFF, X#outputs <<DATE( )>> as a string literal. |
| If you place comments within TEXT...ENDTEXT or after the single backslash character (\) or double backslash characters (\\), X# outputs the comments. |
| TO <VariableName> | Specifies the memory variable name to use for passing the contents of the TEXT...ENDTEXT. This variable can already exist. |
| If the variable has not yet been declared, X# automatically creates it as a private variable. The TO clause operates regardless of how SET TEXTMERGE is set. If SET TEXTMERGE is set to a file, and the TO statement is included, Visual FoxPro outputs both the file and variable. |
| ADDITIVE | Determines whether the contents of the TO variable are overwritten or added to existing contents. If the contents of TO VarName is not a string, X# always overwrites the contents in VarName. |
| TEXTMERGE | Enables evaluation of contents surrounded by delimiters without setting SET TEXTMERGE to ON. |
| NOSHOW | Disables display of the text merge to the screen. |
| FLAGS nValue | Specifies a numerical value that determines if output is suppressed to an output file, or if blank lines preceding any text are included in the output. |
|
| PRETEXT eExpression | Specifies a character string to insert before each line of the text merge contents between TEXT...ENDTEXT or a numeric expression. |
| The following table describes behaviors of the PRETEXT clause depending on the expression specified by eExpression. |
| eExpression | PRETEXT behavior |
| Character expression | Insert the expression before each line of the text merge contents appearing between the TEXT...ENDTEXT statement. When using PRETEXT with TEXT...ENDTEXT, eExpression is limited to a maximum length of 255 characters. |
eExpression overrides the contents of the _PRETEXT system variable. When eExpression contains an expression that needs to be evaluated, for example, a user-defined function (UDF), Visual FoxPro evaluates it only once when the TEXT command first appears. |
| Numeric expression | Specify additive flag values to determine behavior for the text merge contents appearing between the TEXT...ENDTEXT statement. |
For example, a value of 7 specifies that Visual FoxPro eliminate all white space including spaces, tabs, and carriage returns. A value falling outside of the range of 0-15 produces an error.
| Note |
| Specifying a value of zero does not eliminate white space. |
| When eExpression is a numeric expression, you can use the _PRETEXT system variable to insert additional text after Visual FoxPro eliminates white space. The following table lists numeric additive flags that you can use in eExpression to specify additional behavior. |
|
| Note Unlike the _PRETEXT system variable, the PRETEXT clause does not have global scope and applies only to the TEXT...ENDTEXT statement in which it appears. Characters removed using the PRETEXT clause apply only to text within the TEXT...ENDTEXT statement and not to evaluated text merged from cExpression. In the following example, the spaces in the memory variable, myvar, are not removed when merged with the text in TEXT...ENDTEXT: |
myvar = " AAA"
TEXT TO x NOSHOW ADDITIVE TEXTMERGE PRETEXT 7
Start Line
<<myvar>>
BBB
CCC
ENDTEXT
By default, TEXT ... ENDTEXT sends output to the terminal window. To suppress output to the terminal window, issue SET CONSOLE OFF. To send output to a printer or a text file, use SET PRINTER. To send output from TEXT ... ENDTEXT to a low-level file that you created or opened using FCREATE( ) or FOPEN( ), store the file handle returned by FCREATE( ) or FOPEN( ) to the _TEXT system variable, which you can use to direct output to the corresponding low-level file.
The text merge process usually includes any white space that might appear before each line in a TEXT...ENDTEXT statement. However, the inclusion of white space might cause the text merge to fail, for example, when XML is used in a Web browser. You must remove such white space to avoid incorrectly formatted XML.
Nesting TEXT...ENDTEXT statements is not recommended, especially if using the PRETEXT clause because the nested statements can affect the format of the outer statements.
Example 1
The following example demonstrates creating a low-level file called myNamesFile.txt and storing its file handle in the _TEXT system variable. The program exits if the myNamesFile.txt file cannot be created.
The code opens the customer table and outputs the names of the first ten contacts to CotactList.txt.
The code outputs the text and results of the functions to the text file.
CLEAR
CLOSE DATABASES
SET TEXTMERGE ON
SET TEXTMERGE TO ContactList.TXT
USE customer
TEXT
CONTACT NAMES
<<DATE( )>> <<TIME( )>>
ENDTEXT
WAIT "Press a key to generate the first ten names."
SCAN NEXT 10
TEXT
<<contact>>
ENDTEXT
ENDSCAN
CLOSE ALL
Example 2
The following example shows a custom procedure that uses TEXT...ENDTEXT to store an XML DataSet to a variable. In the example, all spaces, tabs, and carriage returns are eliminated.
PROCEDURE myProcedure
DO CASE
CASE nValue = 1
TEXT TO myVar NOSHOW TEXT PRETEXT 7
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<DataSet xmlns="http://tempuri.org">
<<ALLTRIM(STRCONV(leRetVal.item(0).xml,9))>>
</DataSet>
ENDTEXT
OTHERWISE
ENDCASE
ENDPROC
See Also
FOPEN( ) Function
_PRETEXT System Variable
SET TEXTMERGE Command
SET TEXTMERGE DELIMITERS Command
_TEXT System Variable
