Variable length data printed neatly?

[Robert E. Carneal]

I have a data file contaning three fields per record.
The first field is an abbreviation, the 2nd field is
the word, and the 3rd field is the meaning of that word.

Example:
"DIVF","DIVORCE FILED","Filing of divorce by a spouse."

Therefore when someone wants to know the meaning of the
abbreviation, they can type that in.

Problem: Some definitions are 100s of characters long.

Does anyone have a easy way of breaking up the meaning into
several readable lines so that it word wraps neatly? Seems
like I recall someone doing this, perhaps it was Dan?

Thank you.

Robert

------------------

[Michael Mattias]

PB/Win Code, but I think it will darn near work 'as is' in the latest PB/DOS...

FUNCTION WordBreakString ALIAS "WordBreakString" (szIn AS ASCIIZ, szOut AS ASCIIZ, BYVAL MaxLineLength AS LONG) AS LONG
' breaks up szIn into LF =terminated strings not larger than maxLineLength
' returns: # of LF-terminated strings szOut

   LOCAL Stat AS LONG, I AS LONG, J AS LONG
   LOCAL inLEn AS LONG
   LOCAL LenSzOut AS LONG

   LOCAL pIN AS STRING PTR * 1, pOut AS STRING PTR * 1
   LOCAL LineBReak AS LONG, LineLength AS LONG

   pIn =  VARPTR (szIn)
   pOut = VARPTR (szOut)
   inLEn = LEN (szIn)

   I = 0
   J = 0    ' characters this line

   LOCAL forward AS LONG, backward AS LONG, Direction AS LONG
   Forward = 1
   Backward = -1

   DECR pIn
   DECR pOut

   LineBreak = %FALSE
   Direction = Forward
   LineLength = MaxLineLength
   Stat = 0

   WHILE I <= InLen
         pIn   = pIn  + Direction
         pOut  = pOut + Direction
         @Pout = @pin
         J = J + Direction
         I = I + direction
         IF J = LineLength THEN
            SELECT CASE @pin
                   CASE ",", " ",")","!","?"   ' character OK to break on
                      LineBreak = %TRUE
                   CASE ELSE
                  ' go back to first qualifying break character and accept a smaller linelenght
                      Direction = Backward
                      DECR LineLength
            END SELECT
        ELSEIF I = InLen THEN
           LineBreak = %TRUE
        END IF
        IF LineBreak THEN
           INCR pOut
           @pOut = $LF
           INCR Stat
           Direction = Forward
           LineLength = MaxLineLength
           LineBreak = %FALSE
           J = 0
        END IF
   WEND
   FUNCTION = Stat

END FUNCTION

MCM



[This message has been edited by Michael Mattias (edited January 01, 2004).]