Using OPEN "SCRN:" FOR OUTPUT AS #1

[Scott Butler]

I am translating an old qbasic program and it uses the OPEN "SCRN:" FOR OUTPUT AS #1 statement to write to the screen, OPEN "LPT1:" FOR OUTPUT AS #1 for the printer, and OPEN FILE1$ FOR OUTPUT AS #1 for a file. This is actually nice as it abstracts the output from the output medium. However, it does not seem to work for the screen (I have not tested the printer or file output). My guess is that this code will only work for file output and not screen or printer. Can anyone confirm that the first two open statements are not supported in PBCC 4? Also, any ideas on how to abstract the output from the medium would be much appreciated.

Scott

[Fred Buffington]

As far as the LPT1. this may work if you have a printer actually attached to
the LPT1 port. Failing that, you could use a network printer and use the NET USE command syntax in a bat file (for example) to make the program think it's
going to LPT1 when really it's going to the network printer. That said, this will work for DOS programs and may work for pbcc but I have not tested that.

The scrn: I'm not sure, and I am familiar with that kind of usage, having used it in QB programs for years.

I Will see what I can come up with.

And you should have no trouble, as you said, with printing to the file.

A possible workaround for the scrn: might be something like below

#COMPILE EXE
#DIM ALL

FUNCTION PBMAIN () AS LONG

    LOCAL LL$,dv$,FF%
    dv$="SCRN"
    OPEN dv$ FOR OUTPUT AS #1
    PRINT #1,"Hello"
    CLOSE #1
    IF dv$="SCRN" THEN GOSUB showit
    WAITKEY$
    EXIT FUNCTION
showit:
    OPEN "SCRN" FOR INPUT AS #1
    WHILE NOT EOF(1)
    
      LINE INPUT #1,LL$
      IF INSTR(LL$,CHR$(12)) THEN
        FF%=INSTR(LL$,CHR$(12))
        IF FF%>1 THEN PRINT MID$(LL$,1,FF%-1);
        WAITKEY$
        CLS
      ELSE
        PRINT LL$
      END IF
    WEND
    CLOSE #1
    KILL dv$
    RETURN

END FUNCTION

[Mel Bishop]

As noted in Fred's reply, dump the colon in "SCRN:" and your program should work as advertised.

[Michael Mattias]

????

  hCons            = GetStdHandle (%STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE) 
  OPEN  HANDLE    hCons FOR OUTPUT AS #1

This may not work but if nothing else does it's worth a try.

[Fred Buffington]

Very good Michael - it does seem to work in cc4,

#COMPILE EXE
#DIM ALL
#INCLUDE "win32api.inc"
FUNCTION PBMAIN () AS LONG
   LOCAL hCons AS DWORD,dv$
   dv$="SCRN:"
   IF dv$="SCRN:" THEN
     hCons            = GetStdHandle (%STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE)
     OPEN  HANDLE    hCons FOR OUTPUT AS #1
   ELSEIF dv$="LPT1:" THEN
       'do open printer port here
   ELSE 'assume file
      OPEN dv$ FOR OUTPUT AS #1
   END IF
   PRINT #1,"hello"
   CLOSE #1
   WAITKEY$
END FUNCTION

[Michael Mattias]

Cool.

Fringe benefit... if output is redirected from command line ...

C:\MYFOLDER> start /C myprog.exe >anotherfile

.. console output should be redirected, too.

(You MUST use "START" on XP, known bug in Win/XP!)

But if you already have provision for file output, that's probably not going to be necessary. Maybe someone else can use this idea for something.


MCM

[Mike Hounsome]

I know that this an old (dead?) thread but I'm in a similar situation in that I'm translating my old TurboBasic programs into PBCC6. In TurboBasic I could do the following:

l14:
INPUT "       Do you want to output to screen (s), printer (p), or disk (d)"; f$
IF f$ = "S" OR f$ = "s" THEN
    f$ = "SCRN:"
ELSEIF f$ = "P" OR f$ = "p" THEN
    f$ = "LPT1:"
ELSEIF f$ = "D" OR f$ = "d" THEN
    INPUT"       What do you want to call the file (include path)";fout$
    f$ = fout$
    PRINT
    PRINT"     The output will be written to the file '";f$;"'"
    PRINT
ELSE
    COLOR 6,7
    PRINT"                     answer with 's' or 'p' or 'd'
        PRINT
    CLS
    GOTO l14
END IF
OPEN f$ FOR OUTPUT AS #2 
etc.......

and it all worked fine. It seems that to do the same thing in PBCC6 I need rather a lot of code. Did you ever sort it out, Scott? Did Fred's solution satisfy you?

[Michael Mattias]

>thing in PBCC6 I need rather a lot of code.

You do? I don't:

%OUTPUT_SCREEN = 1&
%OUTPUT_FILE     =  2& 
%OUTPUT_PRINTER = 4& 

FUNCTION ManyOut _ 
    (sText AS STRING, BYVAL outMode AS LONG, OPT hFile AS LONG) AS LONG

  IF ISTRUE (Outmode AND %OUTPUT_SCREEN) THEN 
       ? stext 
  END IF 
  IF ISTRUE (Outmode AND %OUTPUT_DISK) THEN 
       PRINT #hFile,  stext 
  END IF 
 IF ISTRUE (outmode AND %OUTPUT_PRINTER) THEN 
     Lprint  sText
 END IF 

END FUNCTION

As written supports multiple simultaneous outputs. Tweak as desired.

MCM

[Michael Mattias]

I'll bet you are right now wishing you had isolated the writing of the output into a separate procedure in Ye Olde Turbo Basice program...

[Mike Hounsome]

Thanks, Michael for that. It will take a bit of time to digest but my immediate thought is that it would be fine if I had only 'stext' to output. In reality there are possibly 100 lines of text and numbers to output with complex formatting. This is the reason I did it the way I did - I could have just one block of PRINT#2 commands (and PRINT#2 USING$) and they would go wherever I chose to send them. I'm sure there will be a way to do a similar thing using your idea as a basis. It just means thinking in a different way. Thanks.

[Michael Mattias]

Yea, verily, thou art now paying for thy bad habits of the past, putting thy formatting code inline with thy output statements, instead of performing thy formatting and output in separate statements.

[Mike Hounsome]

Yes Michael, formatting and output as separate statements is probably the way to go. But that involves a complete re-write of the program. I'm sure that I will do that as I get better at PBCC6 but in the mean time, just to get me up and running, here is my modification of your model:

#COMPILE EXE
#DIM ALL
#INCLUDE "win32api.inc"
FUNCTION PBMAIN () AS LONG
   LOCAL hCons AS DWORD,f$,fout$,i&

REM **************************** ask the question *****************************

l14:
    COLOR 0,7
    INPUT " Do you want to output to screen (s), printer (p), or disk (d) "; f$

REM **************************** make the choice ******************************

    IF f$ = "S" OR f$ = "s" THEN
        hCons = GetStdHandle (%STD_OUTPUT_HANDLE)
        OPEN  HANDLE    hCons FOR OUTPUT AS #2

    ELSEIF f$ = "P" OR f$ = "p" THEN
        PRINT
        PRINT "I'm still trying to work out how to direct #2 to a printer."
        PRINT "In the mean time I can only repeat all 220 lines, replacing"
        PRINT "all the PRINT# statements with XPRINT ones.
        XPRINT ATTACH DEFAULT
        XPRINT "hello" 'plus 220 lines of code including 73 LPRINT statements
        XPRINT FORMFEED
        XPRINT CLOSE

    ELSEIF f$ = "D" OR f$ = "d" THEN
        INPUT"What do you want to call the file (include path) ";fout$
        PRINT
        PRINT"The output will be written to the file '";fout$;"'"
        OPEN fout$ FOR OUTPUT AS #2

    ELSE
        COLOR 6,7
        PRINT
        PRINT"                     answer with 's' or 'p' or 'd'
        PRINT
        WAITKEY$
        CLS
        GOTO l14
    END IF

REM ************************ output the results *******************************

    PRINT #2,"hello" 'plus 220 lines of code including 73 PRINT# statements
    CLOSE #2
    WAITKEY$
END FUNCTION

This works perfectly for the screen and for a file but I still can't see a way of directing #2 to a printer. It seems as though I have to repeat all the output statements changing PRINT#2 to XPRINT. This would work but it would add another 220 lines of code. I'm sure that there must be a better way of doing it. I'll persevere until I find the correct way to do it. Thanks for your input.

[Mike Hounsome]

oops, for LPRINT read XPRINT in the comment.