Release 10.1A: OpenEdge Development:
Progress 4GL Reference

PUT statement

Sends the value of one or more expressions to an output destination other than the terminal.

Syntax

PUT [ STREAM stream ] [ UNFORMATTED ] [ { expression [ FORMAT string ] [ { AT | TO } expression ] } | SKIP [ ( expression ) ] | SPACE [ ( expression ) ] ] ...

PUT [ STREAM stream ] CONTROL expression ...

STREAM name

Specifies the name of a stream. If you do not name a stream, Progress uses the unnamed stream. See the DEFINE STREAM statement reference entry in this book and chapter on alternate I/O sources in OpenEdge Development: Programming Interfaces for more information on streams.

UNFORMATTED

Tells Progress to display each expression in the same format produced by the EXPORT statement, but without quotes.

expression

Specifies a constant, field name, variable name, or expression.

FORMAT string

The format in which you want to display the expression. If you do not use the FORMAT option, Progress uses the defaults shown in Table 42.

Table 42: Default display formats 

Type of expression	Default format
Field	Format from Dictionary.
Variable	Format from variable definition.
Constant character	Length of character string.
Other	Default format for the data type of the expression.

Table 43 shows the default formats for other expressions.

Table 43: Default data type display formats

Data type	Default display format
CHARACTER	x(8)
CLASS3	>>>>>>9
DATE	99/99/99
DATETIME	99/99/9999 HH:MM:SS.SSS
DATETIME-TZ	99/99/9999 HH:MM:SS.SSS+HH:MM
DECIMAL	->>,>>9.99
HANDLE2	>>>>>>9
INTEGER	->,>>>,>>9
LOGICAL	yes/no
MEMPTR1	See the note at the end of the table.
RAW1	See the note at the end of the table.
RECID	>>>>>>9
ROWID1	See the note at the end of the table.
WIDGET-HANDLE2	>>>>>>9
You cannot display a MEMPTR, RAW, or ROWID value directly. However, you can convert it to a character string representation using the STRING function and display the result. A ROWID value converts to a hexadecimal string, “0xhexdigits,” where hexdigits is any number of characters “0" through “9" and “A” through “F”. A MEMPTR or RAW value converts to decimal integer string. To display a HANDLE or WIDGET-HANDLE, you must first convert it using the INTEGER function and display the result. To display a CLASS, you must first convert it using the INTEGER or STRING function and display the result.

AT expression

Specifies the column position where you want to place the output value. If that position has already been used on the current line, PUT skips to the next line and puts the expression in the specified column.

TO expression

Specifies the column position where you want to end the output value being output. If that position has already been used on the current line, PUT skips to the next line and puts the expression in the specified column.

SKIP [ ( expression ) ]

Specifies the number of new lines you want to output. If you do not use the SKIP option, PUT will not start a new line to the output stream. If you use the SKIP parameter, but do not specify expression (or if expression is 0), Progress starts a new line only if output is not already positioned at the beginning of a new line.

SPACE [ ( expression ) ]

Specifies the number of spaces you want to output. Spaces are not placed between items being PUT unless you use the SPACE option.

CONTROL expression

The expression specifies a control sequence that you want to send without affecting the current line, page counters, and positions maintained within Progress. Following CONTROL, expression can be a character-string expression or a RAW variable. It can include null character constants of the form NULL or NULL( expression ), where expression specifies the number of NULLs to send. See the Notes section for details.

Example

This procedure creates a text file that contains the names of each customer. The names are separated from each other by a slash (/). The entire file consists of one long line.

r-put.p

DEFINE STREAM s1. OUTPUT STREAM s1 TO cus.dat. FOR EACH customer: PUT STREAM s1 name "/". END. OUTPUT STREAM s1 CLOSE.

Notes

In the AT, TO, SKIP, and SPACE options, if expression is less than or equal to 0, Progress disregards the option.
The PUT statement never automatically starts a new line. You must use SKIP to explicitly start a new line.
The PUT statement uses the default display format for the data type of the field or variable you name in the PUT statement. The PUT statement does not overwrite an area that is already used by a previous format when it displays data.

DEFINE VARIABLE myname AS CHARACTER FORMAT "x(8)". DEFINE VARIABLE mynum AS CHARACTER FORMAT "x(8)". myname = "abc". mynum = "123". OUTPUT TO myfile. PUT myname AT 8 mynum AT 12. OUTPUT CLOSE.

abc 123

Use the UNFORMATTED option with the PUT statement to override the format-sensitive display.

You can use the NULL keyword to output null characters (\0) in a control sequence. For example, the following statements write the control sequence ESC A \0 and 20 NULLs to output stream A:

PUT STREAM A CONTROL "~033A" NULL. PUT STREAM A CONTROL NULL(20).

You can use the PUT statement with an object reference for a class object instance. The PUT statement implicitly calls the ToString( ) method of the class to convert the specified object reference to a character value before it sends the value to the output destination.

See also

DEFINE STREAM statement, DISPLAY statement, EXPORT statement, OUTPUT TO statement, PAGE statement, PUT SCREEN statement