# DelimitedTextWriter

VTKExamples/Cxx/InfoVis/DelimitedTextWriter

### Description

Is the output of "","","" 0,1,2 3,4,5 6,7,8

expected? What is the first line indicating? Simply that there are 3 string fields?

With my prior edit, the first line is now "column-0","column-1","column-2" -- the first line is the names of the column arrays in the table. I added them to the example because the example was crashing on Windows builds, where streaming a NULL char* is no bueno. (David Cole)

### Code

DelimitedTextWriter.cxx

     #include <vtkVersion.h>

    #include <vtkSmartPointer.h>
    #include <vtkPolyData.h>
    #include <vtkDelimitedTextWriter.h>
    #include <vtkSphereSource.h>
    #include <vtkVariantArray.h>
    #include <vtkTable.h>

    #include <sstream>
    #include <string>

    int main(int argc, char *argv[])
    {
      std::string outputFilename = "output.txt";

      // Use the specified filename if it is provided
      if(argc == 2)
      {
        outputFilename = argv[1];
      }

      // Construct an empty table
      vtkSmartPointer<vtkTable> table =
        vtkSmartPointer<vtkTable>::New();

      for(unsigned int i = 0; i < 3; i++)
      {
        vtkSmartPointer<vtkVariantArray> col =
          vtkSmartPointer<vtkVariantArray>::New();

        std::ostringstream oss;
        oss << "column-" << i;
        std::string colName = oss.str();
        col->SetName(colName.c_str());

        col->InsertNextValue ( vtkVariant ( 0.0 ) );
        col->InsertNextValue ( vtkVariant ( 0.0 ) );
        col->InsertNextValue ( vtkVariant ( 0.0 ) );
        table->AddColumn ( col );
      }

      // Fill the table with values
      unsigned int counter = 0;
      for(vtkIdType r = 0; r < table->GetNumberOfRows(); r++ )
      {
        for(vtkIdType c = 0; c < table->GetNumberOfColumns(); c++ )
        {
          table->SetValue ( r,c, vtkVariant ( counter ) );
          counter++;
        }
      }

      vtkSmartPointer<vtkDelimitedTextWriter> writer =
        vtkSmartPointer<vtkDelimitedTextWriter>::New();
      writer->SetFileName(outputFilename.c_str());
    #if VTK_MAJOR_VERSION <= 5
      writer->SetInputConnection(table->GetProducerPort());
    #else
      writer->SetInputData(table);
    #endif
      writer->Write();

      return EXIT_SUCCESS;
    }

### CMakeLists.txt

    cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 2.8)

    PROJECT(DelimitedTextWriter)

    find_package(VTK REQUIRED)
    include(${VTK_USE_FILE})

    add_executable(DelimitedTextWriter MACOSX_BUNDLE DelimitedTextWriter.cxx )

    target_link_libraries(DelimitedTextWriter ${VTK_LIBRARIES})

### Download and Build DelimitedTextWriter

Danger

The generation of tar files has not been ported to the new VTKExamples. Some tarballs may be missing or out-of-date.

Click here to download DelimitedTextWriter and its CMakeLists.txt file. Once the tarball DelimitedTextWriter.tar has been downloaded and extracted,

    cd DelimitedTextWriter/build

If VTK is installed:

    cmake ..

If VTK is not installed but compiled on your system, you will need to specify the path to your VTK build:

    cmake -DVTK_DIR:PATH=/home/me/vtk_build ..

Build the project:

    make

and run it:

    ./DelimitedTextWriter

WINDOWS USERS PLEASE NOTE: Be sure to add the VTK bin directory to your path. This will resolve the VTK dll's at run time.