Converting the Region Type

The Region Type field in the Properties window displays information about the type of region Stylus Studio inferred when the file was first read. Its value is either Fixed-width, Line-oriented, or No-output.


Tip		Information about No-output regions is not displayed in the Properties window.

Stylus Studio's Convert to XML interprets regions with CR/LF control characters as line-oriented regions. There might be occasions, however, when you want to change the region type from line-oriented to fixed-width, or vice versa. This section describes the tools you can use to change a region from one type to another.

Consider the following file fixed-width file:


Make Model Year Mileage BMW R1150RS 2004 14274 Kawasaki GPz1100 1996 60234 Ducati ST2 1997 24000 MotoGuzzi LeMans 2001 12393 BMW R1150R 2002 17439 Ducati Monster 2000 15682 Aprilia Futura 2001 17320

It is a simple .txt file with fields ( Make, Model, and so on) that have been created using spaces. Each new row was created using the Enter key in the text editor, resulting in CR/LF control characters at the end of each line that cause Convert to XML to interpret the file as a single line-oriented region, like this:

Figure 175. Fields are Aligned by Default

For display purposes, we can remove the spaces Stylus Studio has inserted for readability (the cells with the light blue shading) by clicking the Align Fields ( ) button. This results in a display that resembles the source ( Figure 176), but Stylus Studio still considers the region to be line-oriented.

Figure 176. Turning Off Align Fields Can Aid Readability

When you convert a line-oriented region to a fixed-width region, Convert to XML removes spaces it added for readability and depicts only the spaces in the original input file used to create the fields and the field values themselves, as show in Figure 177.

Figure 177. Line-Oriented Regions Converted to Fixed-Width

By default, Stylus Studio displays fixed-width files using an 80-character row. This accounts for the input files appearance when it is first displayed as a fixed-width file - if you scan the document, you can see that all of the file's original information, including the CR/LF control characters has been retained, but that the formatting differs - the original input file had eight rows; now it has four rows of 80 characters.