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Filenames
We've seen how to create a file ane read it back before, but this program is slightly different. This prompts the user for a filename and then creates the file you choose. A standard dialog is used with file, folder and drive prompts.
A variable, a$, is used to store the filename and path, and we can set this to a default name that will be displayed in the dialog with a$="c:\filename". The dialog is straightforward: dInit "New File",16 sets the title - the 16 means use a compact display. The file controls are added with dFile a$,"File,Folder,Disk",1. The File,FolderDisk are the prompts and the 1 means use an edit box. Other values include: 0 (use a selector), 2 (allow directory names), 4 (directory names only).
Two buttons are used in the dialog - Cancel and OK - using dButtons. The button captions are followed by the values of the keys to respond to - 27 (Escape) and 13 (Enter). The $100 added to them tells the system not to display shortcuts under the buttons Take out the $100 and see what happens.
There's a Trap Delete a$ line, which we've seen before. This deletes the file before trying to create it, otherwise the program would stop if a file of the same name existed. In a real program you would probably check to see if the file existed and ask whether the user wanted to overwrite that file.
Another interesting point is the a$=chr$(32)+a$+chr$(34) line. The reason for this is that you can't use Create to create a file if there are spaces in the filename. However, if you put the filename in quotes like this "My File" rather than My File then everything is OK. Chr$(34) is the quote symbol ". Try taking out this line and see what happens when you enter a filename with spaces in.
PROC Filenames: Local a$(255) a$="c:\filename" dInit "New file",16 dFile a$,"File,Folder,Disk",1 dButtons "Cancel",27+$100,"OK",13+$100 If Dialog<>13 : Stop : Endif Trap Delete a$ Print "Creating file..." a$=chr$(34)+a$+chr$(34) create a$,A,b$,c$ A.b$="2" A.c$="3" Append Close Print "Reading file..." Open a$,A,d$,e$ Print A.d$,A.e$ Close Get ENDP
