FILE NAME QUOTE

FILE NAME QUOTE (SET)

Set Subcommand

Specify whether or not file names may be enclosed in double quotes (").

The READ, WRITE, CAPTURE, CALL/CREATE and LIST commands can accept file names as arguments. Many current operating systems allow path and file names to contain embedded spaces. In particular, Windows on the PC uses spaces in many common path names. Typically, when Dataplot parses a file name, it treats the next space character as the end of the file name. Enclosing the file name in quotes allows the file name to contain spaces.

For the WRITE command, we can have something like

 
WRITE   "   string to printed  "
    

In this case, we do not want the quotes to be interpreted as enclosing a file name. The SET FILE NAME QUOTE is used to address this ambiguity. If the command

SET FILE NAME QUOTE ON

is given, then if the first character in the file name is a double quote, Dataplot treats all characters until the next double quote as the file name (the quotes are not part of the file name).

SET FILE NAME QUOTE OFF

is given, Dataplot treats any quotes as signifying the start of a literal string to be printed.

The READ, CAPTURE, CALL/CREATE and LIST commands do not have this ambiguity. For these commands, the value for SET FILE NAME QUOTE is automatically set to ON.

For the WRITE command, the default is OFF. This is so that WRITE commands that contain quotes for literal strings will still work if the embedded string contains a "." (a period is the signifier that a string denotes a file name).

SET FILE NAME QUOTE <ON/OFF>
where <ON> specifies that file names may be embedded with quotes and <OFF> specifies that quotes do not delineate file names.

SET FILE NAME QUOTE ON
SET FILE NAME QUOTE OFF

Dataplot treats hyphens as delimiters as well. So if the file name contains hyphens, you need to enclose it in quotes.

This switch is OFF by default for the WRITE command. The switch is automatically set to ON for READ, LIST, CALL/CREATE and CAPTURE commands.

None

READ	=	Read data from a file.
WRITE	=	Write data to a file.
CAPTURE	=	Re-direct alphanumeric output to a file.
LIST	=	List the contents of a file.
CALL	=	Execute commands stored in a file.

Data Input/Output

2002/07
2003/08: The READ, CAPTURE, and LIST commands automatically set this switch to ON.

 
SET FILE NAME QUOTE ON
LET Y1 = NORMAL RANDOM NUMBERS FOR I = 1 1 100
LET Y2 = CAUCHY RANDOM NUMBERS FOR I = 1 1 100
WRITE "C:\My Data\TEST.DAT"  Y1 Y2
LIST "C:\My Data\TEST.DAT"
READ "C:\My Data\TEST.DAT"  Z1 Z2