st: appending or tostring programming issue

[Laura Gibbons <gibbonsl@u.washington.edu>]

I have a program that prepares data (and code) for a DOS-based program.
I need a line above the actual data that is of the form:

NPKY      XXXX

with the data below, so it looks like:

NPKY      XXXX
10000000011234
10000000022398
...
etc.

I had done this by creating a one line tempfile with a string variable 
with value "NPKY       XXXX" and appending the data file to that file.
Because this first line is in string format, I had to -tostring- the data 
as well.  No problem until a user tried a file with 90,000 different 
id's;more than the 65,000+ that tostring allows.

Is there a way to generate the header and the data and concatonate them 
without using append?  This way I could keep the id's in numeric 
format.

Or a way to work around the tostring limitation?

thanks- Laura

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Laura E. Gibbons, PhD
General Internal Medicine, University of Washington
Box 359780
Harborview Medical Center
325 Ninth Avenue, Seattle, WA  98104

phone: 206-744-1842   fax: 206-744-9917
Office address: 401 Broadway, Suite 5122
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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