PUT
Syntax |
PUT [#channel\file_position,] [item1 *[,itemi]* …] or PUT [#channel,] [item1 *[,itemi]* …] |
Location |
Toolkit II, THOR XVI |
This command forms the complement to GET and allows you to store variables in the specified channel (default #3) in the QL’s internal format.
The variables are stored at the current position in the file (or the file_position given with the command, if the first variant is used).
If you provide more than one variable name as the second, third parameter etc, then several variables will be stored in the file in one go.
If no variable is specified, the file pointer will be set to the specified position if the first variant is used.
If the second variant is used, this will have no effect.
If a variable is given as the file pointer, then this variable will be updated with the current file position once PUT has finished its work.
PUT can actually be used to store variables in a different type to their current use (this might, for example, be useful if storing part of a string), by adding the following suffixes to each item:
+0 |
Force floating point type (see note 2 below!) |
&’’ |
Force string type |
||0 |
Force integer type |
Example
a$='Entry 123':PUT #3,a$,a$(7 TO) || 0
will store in channel #3 two bytes giving the length of the string a$, followed by the characters of the string itself, followed by two bytes representing the integer value 123 (ie. 0*256+123).
NOTE 1
On version 2.09 (or earlier) of Toolkit II, PUT could cause problems when used on a channel opened over the network.
NOTE 2
Although PUT can convert variable types as above, if integer tokenisation is enabled on Minerva, then PUT x%+0 will not work. You need to use something such as PUT x%+1e-555 instead.
NOTE 3
Whenever storing data on disk, it is always preferable to store it in its internal format (unless it is to be read on other systems as well). Internal storage is faster because conversion between internal and readable format is no longer necessary. It also produces shorter files since the internal format needs less space and for floating point numbers, the internal format gives the greatest possible accuracy.
CROSS-REFERENCE