Commodore 1581 - Numeric Data Storage on Diskette

EXAMPLES:
To force a quotation mark into a data element going to a file,
append a CHR$(34) to the start of the data element. For example:
PRINT#2,CHR$(34) + "DOE, JOHN"
or
PRINT#2,CHR$(34);"DOE, JOHN"
If you do this often, some space and time may be saved by previously
defining a variable as equal to CHR$(34) as we did earlier with
CHR$(13):
20QT$ = CHR$(34)
400 PRINT#5,QT$ + NAME$
In each case, the added quotation mark will be stripped from the data
by the INPUT or INPUT# statement, but the comma or colon^vill
remain part of the data.
NUMERIC DATA STORAGE ON DISKETTE
Up to this point we have discussed string data storage, now let's
look at numeric storage.
Inside the computer, the space occupied by a numeric variable
depends only on its type. Simple numeric variables use seven bytes
(character locations) of memory. Real array variables use five bytes per
array element, and integer array elements use two bytes each. In
contrast, when a numeric variable or any type is written to a file, the
space it occupies depends entirely on its length, not its type. This is
because numeric data is written to a file in the form of a string, as if the
STR$() function had been performed on it. The first character will be a
blank space if the number is positive, and a minus sign (- ) if the
number is negative. Then comes the number, digit-by-digit. The last
character is a cursor right character.
This format allows the disk data to be read back into a string or
numeric variable later. It is, however, wasteful of disk space, and it can
be difficult to anticipate the space required by numbers of unknown
length. For this reason, some programs convert all numeric variables
into strings before writing them to diskette, and use string functions to
remove any unneeded characters in advance. Doing so still allows
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