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The Liberty Basic Newsletter - Issue #40 - JUN 99
"Knowledge is a gift we receive from others."
		- Michael T. Rankin
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In This Issue:

1.  Programmer's Spotlight on Carl Courtney.
2.  Carl Courtney - in his own words.
3.  Simple Data Files

Contact Carl Coutney:
mailto:  CarlCourt@aol.com

In Future Issues:

Binary Searches - by Ian Davies
GUI Design

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1.  Programmer's Spotlight on Carl Courtney.

Our first Programmer's Spotlight focused on Dean
Hodgson, who has been involved with Liberty BASIC for
several years.  This time, we focus on a relative new-
comer, Carl Courtney.  Although he was an experienced
programmer, Carl first began using LB in October, 1998.
In spite of Carl's recent introduction to the language, his
program, Courtney Calendar was named one of the Best LB
Programs of 1998!  This application is beautifully designed,
is packed with useful functions, AND displays Carl's
unique sense of humor.  Note the PROCRASTINATE button,
which automatically moves all of today's chores to
tomorrows's TO DO list!

(Get Courtney Calendar at:  http://sidebyside.webjump.com/)

Carl is a frequent contributor to the public forums on LB.
He shares his coding expertise, answers questions, and
asks interesting questions that spawn lively discussions.
Maybe even more importantly, Carl shares his wry wit and
self-deprecating sense of humor.

Carl has included a photo of himself.  See the attached
carlcour.bmp.

Thank you Carl, for sharing your knowlege, and for giving
us the gift of laughter!

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2.  Carl Courtney, in his own words:


First, thanks to all the helpful people in the LB community 
who make programming and sharing this hobby so wonderful. 

I owned a small manufacturing facility in central South 
Carolina until 1985, when I sold my formulas and processes 
to a large dental company in West Virginia.  Then, I had a 
lot of time on my hands, and started programming BASIC on 
my son's TI99-4A -- remember those?  16K!  There wasn't much 
software available.  You were expected to write your own.  
Since the screen was only 40 characters wide, I first wrote 
a program that would reformat my documents into 80 characters 
after typing.  That enabled me to type with forty columns 
so I wouldn't have to "window" from left to write as I wrote.  
It was high tech around my house, then!

Later, I moved up to DOS and QBASIC -- then onto Windows, 
but Visual BASIC was a bigger commitment than I was willing 
to make.  Enter Liberty.  Thank you Carl G.

I grew up acting in local theater and my son did the same.  
In the early 90's an agent called me, said he had seen Rand 
(my son) in a local play and, "Could get him some work."  
He turned out to be legit, and Rand works regularly in 
"supporting cast" and "bit parts" on network TV and feature 
films.  Look for, "Cherry Falls" from the "Scream" producers 
this fall.  Rand plays, "Dennis."  Believe it, or not, 
there's a thriving film industry in this area.

My present job is as spokesman for, "Left Field Productions," 
a group of film talent around the South east.  Our first 
project is, "Blood Rite" which should be in your video 
stores in about two years -- and we already have a 
couple of years in this project.

Recently, I made a significant step toward securing studio 
backing for my screenplay, "Moonlight Sonata," which will 
actually be in theaters instead of small, locally owned 
video stores.  It's about time.  I'm trying to be cool, 
but I'm bustin' out all over.

My beautiful wife is Lisa, from Michigan, who learned to 
cook grits for me.  And, my daughter is Cara, who's six 
and too cute to be true.  Rand is 19, so you know how 
awful that is.  Shouldn't he be on his own, now?

Peace and love,
Carl Courtney

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3.  Simple Data Files

We've talked a lot about arrays lately, and the next
newsletter deals with binary searching of arrays.
Here is a technique to fill an array from a simple
data text file.  

First, set up the array and dimension it to be 
larger than the estimated number of items of
data that will need to be stored there:

    DIM DataArray$(500)


The INPUT command will input items from a file one
at a time.  Items are separated by commas OR carriage
returns.  If your data includes commas, such as you
would see in addresses, use LINE INPUT.  With LINE
INPUT, items are separated only by carriage returns,
not commas.

The following example assumes that "yourfile.txt"
consists of strings containing commas, so LINE
INPUT is used.  "i" is a counter variable that
is incremented by one in each loop, and indicates
the index of the array element.

The line:
        Line input #dfile, Item$
Gets the next item from #dfile and sets the variable,
Item$ equal to the input item.

The line:
        DataArray$(i)=Item$ 
Sets the element whose index is "i" in the array to
be the input which is stored in the variable, Item$

When the end of the file is reached, eof(#dfile) no
longer equals 0, so the conditional statement 
evaluates to false and the routine drops out of the
WHILE/WEND loop and continues at the line after
WEND.  The file is then closed and the array is
sorted.  Now, you will be ready to try out the
binary searches of arrays that will be the
subject of the next newsletter.

    DIM DataArray$(500)
    open "yourfile.txt" for input as #dfile
    i=0   'index counter

    While eof(#dfile)=0  'do until end of file is reached
	i=i+1            'increment index counter
        Line input #dfile, Item$ 'get next item
        DataArray$(i)=Item$  'set array index to be Item$
    Wend

    close #dfile 

    SORT DataArray$(, 1, i

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 Newsletter compiled and edited by: Brosco and Alyce.
 Comments, requests or corrections: Hit 'REPLY' now!
            mailto:brosco@orac.net.au
                       or
           mailto:awatson@mail.wctc.net
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