Hi Dav

Thanks for that suggestion.

However, it's the calculation which is important, not the display of the result, so I will have to stick with multiplying the time to make an integer, doing the subtraction, and then putting the decimal point back into the right place for the results.

Like your idea though - might be useful for something else!

Thanks

Appreciate all of that detailed explanation, but it's not for printing (hat would be simple), it's for storage and then manipulation, so I'll have to work with the integer method and string slicing I outlined earlier in my post:

Hi. Thanks for the reply.

For the moment I've had to resort to a somewhat Heath Robinson method to get this sorted, as this 3 decimal place issue could cause cumulative timing issues when fractions get added together (or subtracted)

This is what I'm currently doing. There must be a more elegant solution out there!

Firststartsec$ is a variable used to store the seconds equivalent of the first runner's time of day start time crossing the start line.

Subtracting a runner's finish time from that first start gives a gun elapsed time (as opposed to their personal time which is from when they crossed the start line until they finished)

Hi all

Thanks for all your suggestions

Decided to use 2D arrays instead!

However, I'm now experiencing another issue - mathematical accuracy! I'll post separately

Sorry, that last comment should be directed to Spriggsy. Not sure why I put Felix!! I blame extreme old age and a late night ;-)

Hi folks

I'm trying to figure out how to set up a random access file where I don't know the overall record size at the outset.

The purpose is to store a number of times for laps of a race. Each race will have its own number of laps which may be (for example) as few as 3 or as many as 12.

The first couple of fields will be of fixed size (4 characters each) to store a race number and also a record number pointer, to access a linked file. The remaining fields will store an 11 character content, which will be a time down to 2 decimal places, such as 01:14:23.21. However, the program needs to be able to set up the RA file on the fly, depending on the number of laps.

It's simple enough to define the total record size (8 plus (laps*11)) but I'm having a problem getting my head round how to set up the FIELD instruction for the file when I don't know how many separate fields will be within the file.

I could make the record size as big as I might ever need (e.g. 96 for 8 laps or 118 for 10 laps) but that seems a bit inefficient and also won't help if I then get a 20 lap race, without rewriting that part of the program.

Has anyone overcome this sort of problem previously?

I'm sure there's a relatively simple solution staring me in the face. If not, I'll go with the 20 lap option even though I may never get that many....

So you know, the number of laps is fixed at the outset of the program, after user input of the value. It's stored in a variables file so won't change after setup, and is read when that file is opened.

Thanks for your time and any input.

That's a plan!!

I'll try it with filenum%=20+x% first.

Don't want to use FREEFILE as I need to fix in my mind which filenumbers will be used for when I have to be looking through each of the lap files.

It's quite possible that 11 is already being used - hadn't thought of that.

Cheers

Hi

I use the view print commands in my program. Ignore the various variables shown, but the Head.Statusline prints various things at the top of the QB64 window by calling Window.High and then the Window.Low sub returns the focus to the lower part. I've set my top window as the top 4 lines and the bottom window as lines 5 to 25 (I'm sunning this program in the standard screen 0 or whatever QB64 defaults to). The bottom window can scroll happily with new text. I don't know if it would work the other way round i.e. to fix the lower window for information and scroll the top part.

Sorry if this code isn't copied in correctly - not sure how to do that!

SUB Head.StatusLine

    CALL Window.High: COLOR 0, 15
    LOCATE 2, 39: PRINT "[Using-> "; "c:\race\rrcmob\";
    PRINT "]"; SPACE$(32 - LEN("c:\race\rrcmob\"))
    LOCATE 3, 1: PRINT " [File: "; fil$; "]"; SPACE$(8 - LEN(fil$));
    PRINT TAB(19); "[Date: "; racedate$; "]";
    PRINT TAB(47); "[Recs:"; _TRIM$(STR$(loaded%)); "]   "; TAB(62); "[->";
    IF pr% = 0 THEN
        PRINT "Scrn ] ";
    ELSEIF pr% = 1 THEN
        PRINT "Print] ";
    ELSE
        PRINT "Disk ] ";
    END IF
    PRINT "         ";
    COLOR 7, 1: CALL Window.Low

END SUB

SUB Window.High

    VIEW PRINT 1 TO 4

END SUB

SUB Window.Low
 
    VIEW PRINT 5 TO 25

END SUB