SPACE$

The SPACE$ function returns a STRING consisting of a number of space characters.

Syntax

result$ = SPACE$(count&)

count& is the number of space characters to repeat. Cannot use negative values!

Usage:

Semicolons can be used to combine spaces with text STRING or numerical values.
Concatenation using + can be used to combine STRING text values only.
Spaces are often used to erase previous text PRINTs from the screen.
The function result can also be used to GET and PUT a number of bytes as zero characters: bytes$ = SPACE$(numbytes)
Spaces can also be made using SPC, CHR$(32) or STRING$(n%, 32).

Differences between QB64 and QB 4.5:

QB64 can use LONG values for count up to 2,147,483,647 while QB 4.5 could only use INTEGER values up to 32,767.

Example 1: How to space text in a PRINT statement using SPACE$ with string concatenation.

FOR count% = 0 TO 3 PRINT "abc" + SPACE$( count% ) + "def" NEXT count%

abcdef abc def abc def abc def

Example 2: In SCREEN 0 SPACE$ can be used to change the background color to make an American flag.

USA flag centered on screen with thin horizontal red & white stripes ' blue corner field with randomly twinkling stars CLS LOCATE 25, 1 PRINT "Press any key to stop twinkling"; COLOR , 4 z = 15 FOR x = 5 TO 19 '13 red & white stripes (x =5 to 21 for 15 stripes) IF z = 15 THEN z = 4 ELSE z = 15 COLOR , z LOCATE x, 15 PRINT SPACE$(55) NEXT x FOR x = 5 TO 11 'blue field in upper left quadrant (x = 5 to 13 to hold all 50 stars) COLOR 15, 1 'sits above 4th white stripe LOCATE x, 15 PRINT SPACE$(23) NEXT x DO stop$ = INKEY$ FOR x = 5 TO 10 STEP 2 '39 stars staggered across blue field (50 stars if x = 5 to 12) w = 16 FOR y = 1 TO 6 '5 rows of 6 stars r = INT(RND * 6) IF r = 0 THEN z = 31 ELSE z = 15 IF stop$ = "" THEN COLOR z ELSE COLOR 15 LOCATE x, w w = w + 4 PRINT "*"; NEXT y w = 18 FOR y = 1 TO 5 '5 rows of 5 stars r = INT(RND * 6) IF r = 0 THEN z = 31 ELSE z = 15 IF stop$ = "" THEN COLOR z ELSE COLOR 15 LOCATE x + 1, w w = w + 4 PRINT "*"; NEXT y NEXT x w = 16 FOR y = 1 TO 6 '1 row of 6 stars r = INT(RND * 6) IF r = 0 THEN z = 31 ELSE z = 15 IF stop$ = "" THEN COLOR z ELSE COLOR 15 LOCATE x, w w = w + 4 PRINT "*"; NEXT y t = TIMER DO WHILE t + .2 >= TIMER: LOOP LOOP WHILE stop$ = "" COLOR 7, 0 END

Code by Solitaire

Explanation: In SCREEN 0, the background color is only placed with the the printed text and spaces. CLS can color the entire screen.