Text variables are convenient for storing strings, but they are not efficient for building large, continuously growing reports. As the size of a text variable increases, operations that append or manipulate its contents become progressively slower. For long or continuously generated output, it is better to offload the data to either a temporary on‑disk document or a BLOB.

In the following example, the report is built by repeatedly appending new text to a Text variable. As the variable grows, each append operation becomes slower:

var $myReport : Text var $newTextData : Text var $buidldingReport : Boolean While ($buildingReport)    //...    $myReport:=$myRepor+$newTextData    //... End while

If the final output will be exported to a file, writing directly to a temporary document avoids the performance cost of large in‑memory text operations. Commands such as Open document, SEND PACKET, and CLOSE DOCUMENT can be used:

var $vhDoc : Time $vhDoc:=Open document("Temporary.txt"; Read and write) //Open a document If (OK=1)    While ($buildingReport)      // ...      SEND PACKET($vhDoc; $newTextData)      // ...    End while    CLOSE DOCUMENT($vhDoc) //Close the document End if

For cases where you want to avoid managing on‑disk files, a BLOB provides a faster alternative. Appending text to a BLOB using TEXT TO BLOB is significantly more efficient than repeatedly appending to a growing text variable:

var $myBlob : Blob While ($buildingReport)    //...    TEXT TO BLOB($newData; $newTextData; UTF8 text without length; *)    //... End while