<< Can you expand a little bit further on the hard space? What it is? What the difference is between a hard and soft space?
When I see a file with CHAR(255) it produces this character (ÿ) when I view the file. Is that expected? Will the IRS computers accept this as a space? >> A hard space is any upper range (above ASCII 127) character that appears like a standard space character. Because R:Base, and many other programs, will trim "white space" (spaces, tabs) from the end of strings, using a hard space character can help you format strings for display that rely on having a certain number of characters in them. The exact physical representation of these characters depends on what font and character set your system is set to use — so what appears to you as a space may appear to another user as some odd looking character. However, a hard space is NEVER the same thing as a space character, and will not be treated as a space character by parsing software that consumes your data. Therefore, it's not appropriate when trying to format a file that will be parsed electronically. Doing this is only asking for trouble because while the file will not process correctly it may well appear correct to visual inspection until someone figures out that there are non-standard white space characters used in the encoding. -- Larry
