``` DIM t$(100):OPEN #2,"v>t$":.TIME :CLOSE #2:PRINT t$ ``` but now that you know a bit more about streams, should that even work? The answer is yes, as it's designed to work that way. Most dot commands that produce textual output in a "legal" way (that is without circumventing *NextZXOS*), will attempt to output content on stream **#2**. By opening stream **#2** to the variable channel and then executing the command whose output we wish to capture, we're performing a temporary redirection of the screen stream to the variable channel. Then, once we close the stream again, as the system is designed to do, it resets it to its default channel **s** and reopens it. Obviously if a program does not use the inbuilt *NextZXOS* and *NextBASIC* routines to produce output, this will produce nothing. The example below, shows a more "traditional" way of using the variable channel by using the inbuilt facility of a command (**CAT ASN** in this case) to output to a different channel: ``` 10 DIM a$(1000) 20 OPEN #8, "v>a$" 30 CAT #8 ASN 40 RETURN #8 TO l 50 PRINT "Assignment length is:";l;" chars" 60 PRINT "List is:" 70 PRINT a$( TO l) 80 CLOSE #8 ``` > **Notes** > > If a stream operation fails (like in the example above), the stream will not automatically close. It is therefore a good practice to start all your programs that operate on a stream with a **CLOSE #** prior to actually performing an **OPEN #** operation for the first time. It's also even better programming practice to include **ON ERROR** error-trapping, on every stream operation (especially the ones that operate on File Channels) as a lot of things can go wrong while working with files and channels in general (e.g. Running out of data, or your reserved memory area was smaller than the one you should have reserved etc). As you can see line **40** also demonstrates the use of a pointer command in the variable channel. If you do not reserve enough room (for the sake of displaying the results, change the size of **a$** to just **10** characters from the **1000** it has) you will receive an **8 End of File** error at line **30**. The memory channel operates in a very similar manner; once you reserve the space, you open it and dump the output to it. Let's modify the above program to use the memory channel: ``` 10 CLEAR 29999 20 OPEN #8, "m>30000,1000" 30 CAT #8 ASN 40 RETURN #8 TO l 50 PRINT "Assignment length is:";l;" chars" 60 REM perform some magic here via MC 70 FOR f = 0 TO l-1 ```