Writing fixed length text files

I hope my experience will save some time for some programmers who never experienced this scenario before.

When sending a fixed length text file with spaces at the end of the file;

Trailing blanks are truncated when writing in text mode.

To create fixed length records, use binary mode to write each record and append your own line break(CRLF-Hex ODOA).

File-type 'BIN' gives you the option of defining the file_size while using the ws_download function to download the file.

For an 80 character fixed length file, The internal table should be defined with the 2 extra one character type x fields.


data: begin of intab occurs 10,             
      field1(01) type c, 
      bkacct(03) type c, 
      field3(02) type n, value '00',         
      acount(10) type c ,
      field5(01) type c value ' ',          
      ttype(01) type c, 
      indicator(01),(
      field8(01) type c, 
     chect(10) type n ,                                          
      trwbtr(10),                           
      laufd(6) type c,                      
      znme1(20),                            
      filler(14) type c value '  '.           
      cr(1) type x value '0D',              
      lf(1) type x value '0A',              
      end of intab.   

calling the function module with filetype bin with the specific file size.                      

form download_filetab. 
                          
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 that data exists  
                       
  describe table intab lines sy-tfill.           
  ws_size = sy-tfill * 82.  
                     
  call function 'WS_DOWNLOAD'                    
       exporting                                 
            bin_filesize        = ws_size   
            filename            = ws_file        
            filetype            = 'BIN'          
       tables                                    
            data_tab            = intab          
       exceptions                                
         
   file_open_error     = 1              

   file_write_error   = 2               
invalid_filesize = 3   invalid_table_width = 4              invalid_type        = 5              
  others              = 6.  

Hope it helps!

This was first published in May 2002

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