FIELD Specification (MATRIX-END MATRIX command)

FIELD specifies the column positions of a fixed-format record to which the data should be written.

  • The FIELD specification is required.
  • The start column, c1, is the number of the leftmost column of the output area.
  • The end column, c2, is the number of the rightmost column of the output area.
  • Both c1 and c2 are required, and both must be constants. For example, FIELD = 9 TO 72 specifies that values should be written between columns 9 and 72 (inclusive) of each output record.
  • The BY clause, if present, indicates how many characters should be allocated to the output value of a single matrix element. The value w is the width of the area designated for each value. For example, FIELD = 1 TO 80 BY 10 indicates that up to eight values should be written per record, and that one should go between columns 1 and 10 (inclusive), another between columns 11 and 20, and so on up to columns 71 and 80. The value on the BY clause must evenly divide the length of the field. That is, c2 − c1 + 1 must be a multiple of w.
  • You can use the FORMAT specification (see below) to supply the same information as the BY clause. If you omit the BY clause from the FIELD specification and do not specify a format on the FORMAT specification, WRITE uses freefield format, separating matrix elements by single blank spaces.