How to write data to CSV file in ABL coding - csv

Question

I populated a temp from a query, and the temp table looks like,
ttcomp.inum
ttcomp.iname
ttcomp.iadd
There are 5000 records in this temp table and now i wanted to write in a CSV file. I think it could be done with output stream but i don't know how to implement this. Please someone help me in getting this.

Answer 1

Export does the trick:
/* Define a stream */
DEFINE STREAM str.
/* Define the temp-table. I did some guessing according datatypes... */
DEFINE TEMP-TABLE ttcomp
FIELD inum AS INTEGER
FIELD iname AS CHARACTER
FIELD iadd AS INTEGER.
/* Fake logic that populates your temp-table is here */
DEFINE VARIABLE i AS INTEGER NO-UNDO.
DO i = 1 TO 5000:
CREATE ttComp.
ASSIGN
ttComp.inum = i
ttComp.iname = "ABC123"
ttComp.iadd = 3.
END.
/* Fake logic done... */
/* Output the temp-table */
OUTPUT STREAM str TO VALUE("c:\temp\file.csv").
FOR EACH ttComp NO-LOCK:
/* Delimiter can be set to anything you like, comma, semi-colon etc */
EXPORT STREAM str DELIMITER "," ttComp.
END.
OUTPUT STREAM str CLOSE.
/* Done */

Answer 2

Here is an alternative without stream.
/* Using the temp-table. of Jensd*/
DEFINE TEMP-TABLE ttcomp
FIELD inum AS INTEGER
FIELD iname AS CHARACTER
FIELD iadd AS INTEGER.
OUTPUT TO somefile.csv APPEND.
FOR EACH ttcomp:
DISPLAY
ttcomp.inum + ",":U
ttcomp.iname + ",":U
ttcomp..iadd SKIP.
END.
OUTPUT CLOSE.

Answer 3

There is alternative way also. EXPORT is good in case format doesn't matter because EXPORT ignores format. For example you don't want format for date to be mm/dd/yy. In this case it is better to use PUT STREAM and specify format explicitly.
FOR EACH ttComp NO-LOCK:
PUT STREAM str UNFORMATTED SUBSTITUTE("&1;&2;&3 \n", ttComp.inum, ttcomp.iname, ttcomp.iadd).
END.