MKL$ - QB64Official/qb64 GitHub Wiki

The MKL$ function encodes a LONG numerical value into a 4-byte ASCII STRING value.

Syntax

result$ = MKL$(longVariableOrLiteral&)

Description

  • longVariableOrLiteral& is converted to four ASCII characters. To see this in action, try PRINT MKL$(12345678).
  • The numerical data usually takes up less bytes than printing the LONG number to a file.
  • LONG integer values can range from -2147483648 to 2147483647.
  • Since the representation of a long number can use up to 10 ASCII characters (ten bytes), writing to a file using MKL$ conversion, and then reading back with the CVL conversion can save up to 6 bytes of storage space.
  • CVL can convert the value back to a LONG numerical value.
  • LONG numerical variable values PUT into a BINARY file are automatically placed as an MKL$ ASCII string value.

Example(s)

See Also