Saving program in MBASIC

[Mike_Z]

I have a 8080 CP/M 2.2 machine with 2, 8 inch floppies. Lately, when using MBASIC the SAVE command has been acting strange. I can write a program, save it to floppy, load it and everything seems to work just fine. Yet, when looking at the file under CP/M, for example A>TYPE FILE.BAS, the file looks life it is not just a text file, but some other format. It looks familiar, in that I can see some of the code and comments, but there are a lot of control characters and other strange items. But when loading the same file via MBASIC, the correct code is seen and the program runs just file.

Then looking at the file on a different machine using different floppy drives, I see the same unusual format of the file. Is there some special format that MBASIC is using? I wonder if my code of MBASIC is bad? Thanks for the help, Mike

 

[jlang]

It sounds to me like it's saving the tokenized file. It's been too long for me to remember but there should be a option to the save command to save text.

joe

 

[Mike_Z]

That's what I was thinking, but I can't remember anything about that. I've been looking around in some of my old books and on the web, but have not found anything yet. Thanks, Mike

 

[Chuck(G)]

SAVE <filename>,A should do it.

 

[Mike_Z]

Yup, that works. My next question, is the tokenized format the default? I have not used MBASIC in a number of years and can not remember. Is there a startup switch for MBASIC to save in plain text, or do I have use the ,A? I like would like to use WordStar instead of the MBASIC edit, for changes. Thanks Mike

 

[Mike_Z]

I've found that there is also a ,P switch for SAVE. This saves the file in binary. But no start up switches yet. Mike

 

[Mike_Z]

Well..... apparently there is no startup switch for saving a file in plain text. I found that there are some startup switches for number of files open, highest memory location, and max record size. Thanks for the help, Mike

 

[Chuck(G)]

Yes, the default is the tokenized form for saving.
What I found interesting is that the tokens are different between MBASIC on the x80 platform and GWBASIC under DOS.

 

[modelTsAndHandhelds]

In some versions of Basic that I've used you can save as an ASCII file using: SAVE "filename.asc" ,A

Your mileage may vary in this situation, of course.

george g.