• <GetStart>
  • CSPro User's Guide
    • The CSPro System
    • Data Dictionary Module
    • The CSPro Language
    • Data Entry Module
    • Batch Editing Applications
    • Tabulation Applications
    • Data Sources
    • CSPro Statements and Functions
    • Templated Reporting System
    • HTML and JavaScript Integration
    • Action Invoker
    • Appendix
      • Appendix A - Installation
      • Appendix B - Keys Summary
      • Appendix C - Menu Summary
      • Appendix D - Toolbar Summary
      • Appendix E - Application Properties
      • Appendix F - Converting Within IMPS or ISSA
      • Appendix G - Errors in Censuses and Surveys
      • Appendix H - File Types
        • File Types
        • JSON Specification Files
        • SQLite Use in CSPro
        • Importing Data to CSPro Format
        • Locking Application Files
        • Temporary Data File
        • CSPro DB File Format
        • Files Description
      • Appendix I - JSON Representations
  • <CSEntry>
  • <CSBatch>
  • <CSTab>
  • <DataViewer>
  • <TextView>
  • <TblView>
  • <CSFreq>
  • <CSDeploy>
  • <CSPack>
  • <CSDiff>
  • <CSConcat>
  • <Excel2CSPro>
  • <CSExport>
  • <CSIndex>
  • <CSReFmt>
  • <CSSort>
  • <ParadataConcat>
  • <ParadataViewer>
  • <CSCode>
  • <CSDocument>
  • <CSView>
  • <CSWeb>

Temporary Data File

Most CSPro applications sensibly require data files to operate but there may be times when the contents of a data file are unimportant. Examples of this include a menu program that launches another program based on a user's selection. Such a program generally has no output and thus the contents of the file are meaningless. For batch programs it may be the case that you want to use CSPro functions to perform some task, such as creating content using the write statement.
Before CSPro 7.0, it was possible to write "<none>" in the Define File Associations dialog to have CSPro create a temporary data file. Now you can use a None data source.
Data entry applications run as they would with a file specified. Batch applications, however, do not run any logic associated with elements of the dictionary. Instead only the application preproc and postproc are executed.
PROC GLOBAL

// this function concatenates all the .dat files in a directory by order of date
function ConcatenateDatFiles()

    string file_listing_filename = "file_listing.txt";
    string output_filename = "Output/CombinedFiles.dat";

    // use the DOS dir command to create a file with the list of all .dat files
    string listing_call = maketext('cmd /c "dir /b /od *.dat > %s"', file_listing_filename);
    execsystem(listing_call, wait);

    // open that file and read all of the contents
    File file_listing_file;
    List string file_list;

    file_listing_file.open(file_listing_filename);
    file_listing_file.read(file_list);
    file_listing_file.close();

    filedelete(file_listing_filename);

    // create and run a pff to concatenate these files
    Pff concat_pff;

    concat_pff.setProperty("AppType", "Concatenate");
    concat_pff.setProperty("InputData", file_list);
    concat_pff.setProperty("OutputData", output_filename);
    concat_pff.setProperty("Listing", "ConcatenateDatFiles.lst");
    concat_pff.setProperty("ViewListing", "OnError");
    concat_pff.setProperty("ViewResults", "No");

    concat_pff.exec();

end;

PROC CONCATENATE_FF

    ConcatenateDatFiles();