Functions and CALL Routines

FWRITE Function

Writes a record to an external file.

Category:

External Files

Syntax
Arguments
Details
Examples
See Also

FWRITE returns 0 if the operation was successful, [ne] 0 if it was not successful. FWRITE moves text from the File Data Buffer (FDB) to the external file. In order to use the carriage control characters, you must open the file with a record format of P (print format) in FOPEN.

Note: When you use the update mode, you must execute FREAD before you execute FWRITE. You cannot write a new record in place of the current record if the new record has a length that is greater than the current record. [cautionend]

Examples

This example assigns the fileref MYFILE to an external file and attempts to open the file. If the file is opened successfully, it writes the numbers 1 to 50 to the external file, skipping two blank lines. Note that in a macro statement you do not enclose character strings in quotation marks.

%let filrf=myfile;
%let rc=%sysfunc(filename(filrf,
   physical-filename));
%let fid=%sysfunc(fopen(&filrf,o,0,P));

%do i=1 %to 50;
   %let rc=%sysfunc(fput(&fid,
      %sysfunc(putn(&i,2.))));

   %if (%sysfunc(fwrite(&fid,-)) ne 0) %then
     %put %sysfunc(sysmsg());
%end;

%let rc=%sysfunc(fclose(&fid));

blank	starts the record on a new line.
0	skips one blank line before a new line.
-	skips two blank lines before a new line.
1	starts the line on a new page.
+	overstrikes the line on a previous line.
P	interprets the line as a computer prompt.
=	interprets the line as carriage control information.
all else	starts the line record on a new line.

FWRITE Function

Syntax

Arguments