Re: Lines, Italics and Date formats

[Ray Ontko <rayo@ONTKO.COM>]

> Hello,
>
> I have a number of small questions that I am sure othe people will have
> encountered.
>
> 1)  Is it possible to draw dashed or dotted lines in SQR?

Not easily.  One approach would be to use GRAPHIC HORZ-LINE
and GRAPHIC VERT-LINE to draw dashes as wide (or tall) as a
character in your grid.  By using a one-point by one-point
grid, you could certainly simulate the effect.

Another approach would work if you only have one kind of printer
(HP or PostScript, for example).

> 2)  Is there a date format that will print out the day name e.g say I
> had the value 19981123 (year, month, day), I would like to print out
> 'Mon 23-11-1998'

What version of SQR are you using?  What database are you using?
Prior to version 4 of SQR, this can be done using an appropriate
database select.  In version 4, you can do this directly using
a format string like 'Day DD-MM-YYYY'.  (The same format string
works in Oracle if you're using SQR 3 or earlier).

> 3)  Has anyone got a good answer to the italised font issue.  From the
> SQR archive I understand that the easiest way to achieve italisation is
> to use an talised version of the font (if available).

Unfortunately, you can't simply say ITALIC and get italics, the
way you can say BOLD in a PRINT command and get bold.  If you're
intent on it, you can use PRINT-DIRECT PRINTER=HP followed by
the correct escape sequence, assuming you're using HP.  I think
it's a little more complicated for Postscript, but similar.
If you're writing HTML, the support is there.

Hope this helps.

Ray
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Ray Ontko       |  Ray Ontko & Co  |  "Time for a new signature line."
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