Here we create two columns, and then write them to an ASCII file called foo.dat.

  chips> x = [1:10];
  chips> y = sin(x) + 0.5 * x;
  chips> writeascii("foo.dat",x,y);

As the output is an ASCII file, it can be accessed using standard UNIX tools, such as cat:

  unix% cat foo.dat
  1       1.34147
  2       1.9093
  3       1.64112
  4       1.2432
  5       1.54108
  6       2.72058
  7       4.15699
  8       4.98936
  9       4.91212
  10      4.45598

Instead of writing to a file, we can use writeascii() to write to the screen (ie stdout). This can also be achieved using the "printarr()" Varmm function, although it is limited to printing out only one array. This example also shows how you can access a field within a S-Lang structure, here the second column read from the file "foo.dat".

  chips> foo = readfile("foo.dat")
  chips> writeascii(stdout,foo.col2)
  1.34147
  1.9093
  1.64112
  1.2432
  1.54108
  2.72058
  4.15699
  4.98936
  4.91212
  4.45598

The default format used to print out the column data may not match your needs; for instance it may not display enough significant figures. The format used can be changed by calling the set_float_format() function from the S-Lang Run-Time Library. In the following example we change the format to use the format %13.6e, which means to use exponential notation with 6 numbers after the decimal point and placed within a space 13 characters wide.

  chips> a = [0:10:2] / 3.0
  chips> b = 10^a
  chips> writeascii( stdout, a, b )
  0       1
  0.666667        4.64159
  1.33333 21.5443
  2       100
  2.66667 464.159
  3.33333 2154.43
  chips> set_float_format( "%13.6e" )
  chips> writeascii( stdout, a, b )  
   0.000000e+00    1.000000e+00
   6.666667e-01    4.641589e+00
   1.333333e+00    2.154435e+01
   2.000000e+00    1.000000e+02
   2.666667e+00    4.641589e+02
   3.333333e+00    2.154435e+03
  chips> set_float_format( "%g" )

Note that all the columns are printed using this format and that we reset the format to the default value ("%g") to avoid changing the layout of other commands, such as print() and printarr().