I am creating a pipe delimited output file which will be used in a Microsoft
Word Mail Merge process. In general, it all works fine, except when I have
data like
MSWord looks at double quotes ( " ) as a delimiter even though I have
specified | as the delimiter - and merge chokes. The ultimate resolution is
for the output file to look as follows:
Here's the problem - UniVerse BASIC will not let me do a CONVERT from " to
"" or '. No matter what I do the ouput only becomes " or '. For example:
CONVERT ' " ' TO ' " "' IN OUTREC ;
CONVERT ' " ' TO " ' ' " IN OUTREC ;
CONVERT ' " ' TO ' " ':' " ' IN OUTREC ;
CONVERT ' " ' TO " ' ":" ' " IN OUTREC ;

(note: Extra spaces between the quotes for clarity here. Not actually in
program.)

Also unsuccessfully tried variables in the CONVERT, and an EREPLACE
function.

Have a work around where I replace " with ~ and my MSWord macro changes ~ to
" in the final merged doc, but would prefer to fix the data on the output
side once. This change makes me compensate twice and also requires putting
the MSWord change on multiple machines.

Any help is greatly appreciated!!!
Patty


Patty - try this or something similar;

EQU SQ TO \'\
EQU DQ TO \"\

CONVERT SQ TO ...
CONVERT DQ TO ...


Sorry for posting out here, but the U2 group won't accect my reply. Hope you
get this.
Tom Phillips

"Tom Phillips" <squash (AT) computer (DOT) org> wrote

There ain't no CONVERTs that work this way nowhere.
Convert does a 1-to-1 character replacement only.

What you need is CHANGE (on uv, think it's SWAP on others):
OUTREC = CHANGE(OUTREC, ' " ', ' "" ')
(spaces for clarity)

Chandru Murthi

You also might like to consider tab delimited files ... we haven't
chocked on " in years withy WordLynx