File Question

Ruby
1

Hello to all!

This is a rather strange request, but here goes. I’m writing a program
which
will store output in a .txt file. There are seventeen (17) lines of
output,
and each one must be placed under one another. However, when the output
gets
too long (about 10200 characters), it messes up the formatting. My
question
is whether or not there is a way to make it so that the lines will go on
infinitely. If I haven’t explained this very well, forgive me, and let
me
know.

Thanks in advance.

2

This is a rather strange request, but here goes. I’m writing a program which
will store output in a .txt file. There are seventeen (17) lines of output,
and each one must be placed under one another. However, when the output gets
too long (about 10200 characters), it messes up the formatting. My question
is whether or not there is a way to make it so that the lines will go on
infinitely. If I haven’t explained this very well, forgive me, and let me
know.

Can you show some code?
It will make it easier to understand what you mean and where the problem
is.

Harry

3

Harry wrote:

This is a rather strange request, but here goes. I’m writing a program which
will store output in a .txt file. There are seventeen (17) lines of output,
and each one must be placed under one another. However, when the output gets
too long (about 10200 characters), it messes up the formatting. My question
is whether or not there is a way to make it so that the lines will go on
infinitely. If I haven’t explained this very well, forgive me, and let me
know.

Can you show some code?
It will make it easier to understand what you mean and where the problem
is.

Harry

First, a small explanation. Some of you may have heard of ASCII art. It
involves using symbols such as @ and # in Notepad to create words or
images. My program will take input from the user, and then turn this
into ASCII. Here is an excerpt:

line1 = []
line2 = []
line3 = []
line4 = []
line5 = []
line6 = []
line7 = []
line8 = []
line9 = []
line10 = []
line11 = []
line12 = []
line13 = []
line14 = []
line15 = []
line16 = []
line17 = []
a1 = “…@@@…”
a2 = “.@@@@@@@…”
a3 = “@@@…@@@.”
a4 = “@@@…@@@.”
a5 = “@@@…@@@.”
a6 = “@@@…@@@.”
a7 = “@@@…@@@.”
a8 = “@@@…@@@.”
a9 = “@@@…@@@.”
a10 = “@@@…@@@.”
a11 = “@@@@@@@@@.”
a12 = “@@@@@@@@@.”
a13 = “@@@…@@@.”
a14 = “@@@…@@@.”
a15 = “@@@…@@@.”
a16 = “@@@…@@@.”
a17 = “@@@…@@@.”
puts “INPUT TEST”
input = gets.chomp.to_s.downcase
input.each_byte do |x|
x = x.chr
if x == “a”
line1.push(a1)
line2.push(a2)
line3.push(a3)
line4.push(a4)
line5.push(a5)
line6.push(a6)
line7.push(a7)
line8.push(a8)
line9.push(a9)
line10.push(a10)
line11.push(a11)
line12.push(a12)
line13.push(a13)
line14.push(a14)
line15.push(a15)
line16.push(a16)
line17.push(a17)
else
#other letters
end
end
$File = File.open(“test.txt”, “w”)
$File.puts(line1.join, line2.join, line3.join, line4.join, line5.join,
line6.join, line7.join, line8.join, line9.join, line10.join,
line11.join, line12.join, line13.join, line14.join, line15.join,
line16.join, line17.join)
$File.close

I know it isn’t very good, as I’m only a beginner programmer. This
excerpt will work for the letter “a” alone. Try it out: it will only
store a maximum of 102 A’s until the format goes all crazy in the
Notepad file. If you know of any way to fix this, I’d be grateful for
your help.

4

P.S. Sorry for the double post, but I forgot to mention that in order to
view the Notepad file properly, you need to go to Format > Font… and
set the font to Lucida Console, Regular, Size 1.

5

On Sat, Mar 03, 2007 at 05:52:46PM +0900, Yannick G. wrote:

I know it isn’t very good, as I’m only a beginner programmer. This
excerpt will work for the letter “a” alone. Try it out: it will only
store a maximum of 102 A’s until the format goes all crazy in the
Notepad file. If you know of any way to fix this, I’d be grateful for
your help.

That’s a limitation of Notepad.

6

Chad P. wrote:

That’s a limitation of Notepad.

Do you have any suggestions?

7

On Sat, Mar 03, 2007 at 06:04:00PM +0900, Yannick G. wrote:

Chad P. wrote:

That’s a limitation of Notepad.

Do you have any suggestions?

In my personal experience, SciTE is excellent. Even WordPad doesn’t
have that limitation (though last I checked it still has a memory leak
that was present in the Write program from which it evolved, back in the
Windows 3.x days – not my favorite tool for reading text files).

Others may offer other suggestions.

I haven’t checked in depth on what exactly limits Notepad – whether
it suffers hardcoded limitations or the limits have something to do with
system RAM. I just know that significant filesizes and line lengths
tend to cause it to “puke”, as 'twere, when other text editing
applications don’t have that problem.

8

Am Samstag, 3. März 2007 10:32:35 schrieb Yannick G.:

I write all my Ruby programs in SciTe: it’s the output that’s going to
Notepad.

I thought the output goes into a textfile. Do you actually call notepad
from
inside your script?

I chose Notepad as it is something almost every computer has.

Every computer running Windows anyway.

9

I write all my Ruby programs in SciTe: it’s the output that’s going to
Notepad. I chose Notepad as it is something almost every computer has.
But
I’ll look into Wordpad. Thanks!

10

Thankyou very much for the helpful hints. A quick question: how long
does it
take until one is able to think of smart ways around programming? I’ve
been
doing this for about a year, and I have improved greatly, but not as
much as
I should like.

11

On 03.03.2007 09:52, Yannick G. wrote:

It will make it easier to understand what you mean and where the problem
line2 = []
line13 = []
a7 = “@@@…@@@.”
puts “INPUT TEST”
line7.push(a7)
else
I know it isn’t very good, as I’m only a beginner programmer. This
excerpt will work for the letter “a” alone. Try it out: it will only
store a maximum of 102 A’s until the format goes all crazy in the
Notepad file. If you know of any way to fix this, I’d be grateful for
your help.

** SPOILER **

Don’t read on if you want to try further for yourself.

Some suggestions for improvement: use arrays and indexing to hold your
lines and also your character items. Use the block form of File.open as
it is safer.

const definitions

CHARACTERS = {
?a = [
“…@@@…”,
“.@@@@@@@…”,
# etc.
],
?b = [
],

etc.

}

get input

input = “aa”

create output

lines = Array.new(17) { “” }

input.each_byte do |b|
char = CHARACTERS[b]

lines.each_with_index do |line, idx|
line << char[idx]
end
end

write output

File.open(“out.txt”, “w”) do |io|
lines.each do |line|
io.puts line
end
end

Even more efficient would be to proceed line wise and not create the
result in memory at all but write directly to the file.

Kind regards

robert

12

On 03.03.2007 11:41, Yannick G. wrote:

Thankyou very much for the helpful hints. A quick question: how long
does it take until one is able to think of smart ways around
programming? I’ve been doing this for about a year, and I have improved
greatly, but not as much as I should like.

Um, that’s a much more difficult question than the other one. :slight_smile: The
general answer to this is probably (as often) “it depends”. For me it
certainly took a degree in computer science plus several years software
development and probably also several programming languages. Others
might get the hang of it faster or slower - that probably depends on
yourself and your occupation (doing software development full time
certainly helps) and what other factors you can think of.

Studying CR certainly helps as this will provide you with some basic
concepts and basic understanding (for example, estimating algorithmic
complexity) but that brings you only half there. I do not know a proper
replacement for experience, as you can learn all the principles in
theory but you will be able to apply them properly only with experience.
Also, there is a ton of other issues in practice that the university
did not teach us at the time I was attending.

The single most important concept in software engineering is IMHO
abstraction. By abstraction I mean the way how you distribute
functionality across a system (this holds true for large as well small
pieces of software). Create artifacts (classes, methods, functions)
that do one thing properly. The hard bit is often to determine what
this “one thing” is. :slight_smile:

Having said that, you should probably be a bit more patient. :slight_smile:

Kind regards

robert

13

On 03.03.2007 12:18, Yannick G. wrote:

Well, I’m not interested in programming seriously. I just do it as a
hobby. But thanks again. Also, one quick (hopefully last) quick question:

I attempted the first part of the code that you gave me, the CHARACTERS
array.

My fault, I should have tested the code. You need “=>” instead of “=”:

CHARBLOCK = {
?a => [
“…@@@…”,
“.@@@@@@@…”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@@@@@@@.”,
“@@@@@@@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”
],
?b => [
…

robert

14

Well, I’m not interested in programming seriously. I just do it as a
hobby.
But thanks again. Also, one quick (hopefully last) quick question:

I attempted the first part of the code that you gave me, the CHARACTERS
array.

CHARBLOCK = {
?a = [
“…@@@…”,
“.@@@@@@@…”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@@@@@@@.”,
“@@@@@@@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”
],
?b = [
“…@@@@@@.”,
“.@@@@@@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@…”,
“@@@@@@@…”,
“@@@@@@@@…”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@@@@@@…”,
“@@@@@@…”
],
?c = [
“…@@@@@@.”,
“.@@@@@@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…”,
“@@@…”,
“@@@…”,
“@@@…”,
“@@@…”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@…@@@.”,
“@@@@@@@@…”,
“@@@@@@…”
],
#and so on and so forth
}

However, I’m getting errors such as:
rb:2 odd number list for Hash ?a = [
rb:2 syntax error, unexpected “=”, expecting “’)”
rb:20 syntax error, unexpected “,”, expecting $end

I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong here. If you could help me out one
last
time, then I’d be very grateful. Thanks in advance.

15

Thankyou very much for all your help! You’ve saved me a lot of copying
and
pasting. Have a great day!