Subject Re: STUFF() returns incorrect character From Mervyn Bick <invalid@invalid.invalid> Date Sun, 3 Jan 2021 11:01:57 +0200 Newsgroups dbase.getting-started On 2021/01/02 19:53, John Gillen wrote: > Hello, > > I am using low level file functions (FOPEN(), FEOF(), FREAD(), FWRITE() and FCLOSE() to parse a text file. As part of this parsing, I am using three commands to replace characters in the incoming file: mstring = <incoming string>; mpos = AT(<where character to replace is found in the incoming string>);  mstring = STUFF(mstring,mpos,1,"") to do the character replacement. > > If I run these three steps in the Command window, it works as expected. > > If I run these three steps in a program, instead of NULL, I get a comma (,). > > I tried "",'', and NULL CHR(0) all with the same result - a comma. > > dBASE 8/Windows 10 64bit From dBASE 9 onwards dBASE uses different base classes internally and a different compiler is used to create the program.  I no longer have dBASE 8 available so I can't test it but dBASE 2019 has no problem with using stuff() to replace a character in a string.  dBASE 8 should also not have a problem but without seeing the actual code it is not possible to make any suggestions. Where stuff() is used to replace 1 character with "" it actually removes the specified character from the string. The low level file functions still work in dBASE to take care of legacy programs but, as Gaetano has suggested, using the file class is preferable.  Apart from anything else, the syntax is actually a little simpler as you no longer need to get file handles yourself. cInfile = 'whatever_in.txt' cOutFile = 'whatever_out.txt' cRemove = '\' fIn = new file() fIn.open(cInFile) //ready to be read fOut = new file() fOut.create(cOutfile) // will overwrite an existing file do while not fIn.eof() //read line by line to end of file     cRead = fIn.readln(10000) //any value > than longest line      if cRemove$cRead  // do we need to deal with this line?         do while cRemove$cRead // loop in case there are several characters            cRead = stuff(cRead,at(cRemove,cRead),1,"")         enddo      endif      fOut.writeln(cRead) enddo fIn.close() fOut.close() This example only deals with removing a given character completely from a file.  If you give more details of exactly what the data in the input file looks like and how you want to parse it there may be a different solution. Mervyn.