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Writes the input vector(s) into a file or to the Statistics101 Output Window according to optional format specifications. The keywords may be written in any order on the command line. By default, each input vector becomes one column in the file or the Output Window. Alternately, if the rows keyword is used, then each input vector becomes one row in the file or Output Window.
If an input vector contains Named Constants, the names, not the values, of the constants will be written to the output file. If the window keyword is present, the output of the WRITE command will be sent to the Statistics101 Output Window. You can use this to print tables to the Output Window. Or, if you want to write to a file, you can use the window keyword temporarily to test your formatSpecs by printing to the window, then when they are correct, you can change to the file keyword and write the results to a file. If the file keyword and its filename argument are present, the output of the WRITE command will be sent to the designated file. The filename may be the complete path name or a relative path. A relative path will be relative to the current user directory (the directory containing the statistics101.jar file). If the file exists it will be overwritten unless the append keyword (see below) is also present. If neither the file nor the window keyword is present, an "open file" dialog will appear and ask the user to name a new file or select an existing file to receive the output. If both keywords are present in the same WRITE command, that is considered an error and will result in an error message. The filename accompanying the file keyword must be enclosed in double quotes as shown in the examples. The file path names in Microsoft Windows systems must use either double backslash ("\\") or single forward slashes ("/") as delimiters between the names of nested directories. The reason for the double backslash is that in Java as in other C-derived languages, a backslash is interpreted as an escape character and two backslashes are interpreted as a single true backslash. This is true whether using Statistics101 in Windows, Unix, Linux, or MacOs. Users of non-Windows systems should use the forward slash. If the argfile keyword is present, then the filename will be the path entered using the -w switch on the command line that invoked Statistics101. See Command Line Invocation. If the -w switch is absent or did not name a file, then the user will be requested to select a file. The format specifications (formatSpec) describe the way that elements of each vector are to be written to the output file. Format specifications can use any of the format codes (f, e, g, b, or c) that are described below or no format codes. The general form of the WRITE (or PRINT) format specification is: %width[.precision[code]] where:
For the E, F, and G codes, the delimiter between output columns is a single tab. The codes may be entered in either upper or lower case. No distinction is made by Statistics101. If there is more than one input vector, you should use the same delimiter (comma, tab, or blank) for all vectors. It will work with different delimiters, but the results might not be what you want. e.g., when reading the file back in, the varying delimiters might cause misalignment of the data with the vectors. If there is more than one input vector and you use a format spec for some of the vectors and no format spec for one or more of the vectors, the vectors without format specs will be formatted with the default spec "%14.6G". If you use no format specifications, as in the first two examples at the right, the result will be that all the values will be written with maximum precision, will be separated by commas, and will have no space or tab characters. This is the format of a standard CSV (Comma Separated Values) file. The keyword missing allows you to specify a number that represents missing data. Whenever that number is encountered during the writing of the data to the file, "NaN" will be substituted for it. The keyword rows forces the WRITE command to write each argument vector to the file or window as a row instead of a column. The keyword append instructs the WRITE command to add the specified data to the end of a file if the file already exists. If you rerun a program that writes using append, the data generated by the latest run will be appended to the data from the previous run(s). If you want each run to be independent, you can delete or rename the file manually between runs. Or you can have your program automatically delete it at the start by writing to the file with a WRITE command that lacks the append keyword and has no vector arguments. This will overwrite the existing file with an empty file. Then in the main part of your program you can use the WRITE command with the append keyword to append your data. If the append keyword is not present and if the file already exists, the existing file will be overwritten by the new data. If the append keyword is used in a WRITE command that also has the window keyword, the append keyword is ignored. The keyword heading forces the WRITE command to output the names of the vectors that are its arguments, in addition to the vector elements of the arguments. If the rows keyword is absent, the vector names will be output to the first line of the output file, separated by commas or by the separator that is required by that vector's format spec. If the rows keyword is present, the name of each vector will be the first item in that vector's row of the output file. The READ command also has the heading keyword so it can properly input a file generated by WRITE. |
These first two examples show the two ways (double backslash and single forward slash) of delimiting file paths. The double backslash is for Windows. The single forward slash is preferred because it works in any operating system, including Windows. Also, since the input vector names are not associated with format codes, the output files will be CSV files. The files are named with a ".csv" extension although you could use ".txt" or any other, or even no extension if that is appropriate to your purpose. This is the easiest and probably the most common way to use the WRITE command. WRITE file "C:\\folder1\\folder2\\file.csv" a b c Or WRITE file "C:/folder1/folder2/file.csv" a b c Other examples: The first uses the append keyword. This causes the data to be written to the end of the file if it already exists. The second doesn't specify a file name, so when that WRITE command is executed, it will open a dialog box to allow the user to select or enter the desired file name. WRITE file "C:/folder1/folder2/file.txt" append a%12.8G b%3.6F c%3.6F WRITE a%12.8G b%3.6F c%3.6F This program: COPY 1,10 numbers SQRT numbers roots OUTPUT "Number Sq. Root\n" 'Column titles WRITE window numbers%4.2F roots%3.6F produces the following table in the Statistics101 Output Window: Number Sq. Root 1 1 2 1.414214 3 1.732051 4 2 5 2.236068 6 2.44949 7 2.645751 8 2.828427 9 3 10 3.162278 Here are two simple examples to show the results of the heading keyword. These write to the Output Window for simplicity, but their output to a file would be exactly the same. COPY 1,10 var1 COPY 11,20 var2 COPY 21,30 var3 WRITE window heading var1 var2 var3 Result: var1,var2,var3 1.0,11.0,21.0 2.0,12.0,22.0 3.0,13.0,23.0 4.0,14.0,24.0 5.0,15.0,25.0 6.0,16.0,26.0 7.0,17.0,27.0 8.0,18.0,28.0 9.0,19.0,29.0 10.0,20.0,30.0 Compare with: COPY 1,10 var1 COPY 11,20 var2 COPY 21,30 var3 WRITE window rows heading var1 var2 var3 Result: var1,1.0,2.0,3.0,4.0,5.0,6.0,7.0,8.0,9.0,10.0 var2,11.0,12.0,13.0,14.0,15.0,16.0,17.0,18.0,19.0,20.0 var3,21.0,22.0,23.0,24.0,25.0,26.0,27.0,28.0,29.0,30.0
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