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  ◄Syntax►  ◄Details►  ◄Example►                 ◄Contents►  ◄Index►  ◄Back►
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PUT writes from a variable or a random-access buffer to a file.
 
PUT [#]filenumber%[,[recordnumber&][,variable]]
    ■ If you omit the argument recordnumber&, the next record or byte
      (the one after the last GET or PUT statement, or the one pointed
      to by the last SEEK) is written to. The largest possible record
      number is 2^31 -1 or 2,147,483,647.
    ■ The first record or byte position in a file is 1.
    ■ A record cannot be longer than 32,767 bytes.
    ■ If you specify a variable, you do not need to use MKI$, MKL$, MKS$,
      MKD$, or MKC$ to convert numeric fields before writing. You can not
      use a FIELD statement with the file if you use the variable argument.
    ■ For random-access files, you can use any variable as long as the
      length of the variable is less than or equal to the length of the
      record. Usually, a record variable defined to match the fields in a
      data record is used.
    ■ For binary-mode files, you can use any variable. The PUT statement
      writes as many bytes to the file as there are bytes in the variable.
    ■ When you use a variable-length string variable, the statement
      writes as many bytes as there are characters in the string's value.
      For example, the following two statements write 15 bytes to file
      number 1:
 
        VarString$=STRING$(15, "X")
        PUT #1,,VarString$
 
    ■ See the examples for more information about using variables
      rather than FIELD statements for random-access files.
 
Usage Notes
    ■ Do not use PUT on ISAM files.
    ■ You can omit the argument recordnumber&, variable, or both. If
      you omit the record number but include a variable, you must still
      include the commas:
 
        PUT #4,,FileBuffer
 
    ■ If you omit both arguments, do not include the commas:
 
        PUT #4
 
Important
    ■ GET and PUT statements allow fixed-length input and output for
      BASIC communications files. Be careful using GET and PUT for
      communications because PUT writes a fixed number of characters and
      may wait indefinitely if there is a communications failure.
 
Programming Tips
    ■ When using a file buffer defined by a FIELD statement, LSET,
      RSET, PRINT # , PRINT # USING, and WRITE # may be used to put
      characters in the random-file buffer before executing a PUT
      statement.
    ■ In the case of WRITE #, BASIC pads the buffer with spaces up to
      the carriage return. If you attempt to read or write past the end of
      the buffer, BASIC generates the error message, "FIELD overflow."