How do I write contents of a variable to a text file in Rebol 2? - rebol

Question

Newbie question here...
I'd like to write the output of the "what" function to a text file.
So here is what I have done:
I've created a variable called "text" and assigned the output of "what" to it
text: [what]
Now I want to write the content of the "text" variable to a txt file...
Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

the easiest way to write the output of statements to a file is to use
echo %file.log
what
with echo none you end this
>> help echo
USAGE:
ECHO target
DESCRIPTION:
Copies console output to a file.
ECHO is a function value.
ARGUMENTS:
target -- (Type: file none logic)
(SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES)
catch

Answer 2

Unfortunately there is not really a value returned from the what function:
Try the following in the console:
print ["Value of `what` is: " what]
So write %filename.txt [what] will not work.
Instead, what you could do is to look at the source of what
source what
which returns:
what: func [
"Prints a list of globally-defined functions."
/local vals args here total
][
total: copy []
vals: second system/words
foreach word first system/words [
if any-function? first vals [
args: first first vals
if here: find args /local [args: copy/part args here]
append total reduce [word mold args]
]
vals: next vals
]
foreach [word args] sort/skip total 2 [print [word args]]
exit
]
See that this function only prints (it doesn't return the values it finds) We can modify the script to do what you want:
new-what: func [
"Returns a list of globally-defined functions."
/local vals args here total collected
][
collected: copy []
total: copy []
vals: second system/words
foreach word first system/words [
if any-function? first vals [
args: first first vals
if here: find args /local [args: copy/part args here]
append total reduce [word mold args]
]
vals: next vals
]
foreach [word args] sort/skip total 2 [append collected reduce [word tab args newline]]
write %filename.txt collected
exit
]
This function is a little hackish (filename is set, but it will return what you want). You can extend the function to accept a filename or do whatever you want. The tab and newline are there to make the file output prettier.
Important things to notice from this:
Print returns unset
Use source to find out what functions do
write %filename value will write out a value to a file all at once. If you open a file, you can write more times.

Answer 3

Fairly elementary: use write if you just want to save some text, read to recover it; use save if you want to store some data and use load to recover it.
>> write %file.txt "Some Text"
>> read %file.txt
== "Some Text"
>> text: [what]
>> save/all %file.r text
>> load %file.r
== [what]
You can get more information on each word at the prompt: help save or view online: load, save, read and write.