IMcOMGlobalMcCStr Method

Parameters

StringWithEscapeChars

Type: SystemString
The source string with C-style escape characters. The source string is not modified.

Return Value

Type: String
The result string with each escape sequence replaced by the corresponding special character. This string will never be longer than the StringWithEscapeChars, and it may be shorter.

One of the more irritating things about Visual Basic is that there is no mechanism for placing special characters such as carriage return, line feed or tab into a string. Instead you need to concatenate strings with the special characters. The C language has a much better approach, since it allows you to embed special characters in a string by use of "escape sequences". A C-style escape sequence always starts with a backslash. Each escape sequence resolves to one character. The following list gives the supported escape sequences and the character that they encode. \a Bell (alert) (decimal 7, hex \x07, octal \007) \b Backspace (decimal 8, hex \x08, octal \010) \f Formfeed (decimal 12, hex \x0c, octal \014) \n New line (decimal 10, hex \x0a, octal \012) \r Carriage return (decimal 13, hex \x0d, octal \015) \t Horizontal tab (decimal 9, hex \x09, octal \011) \v Vertical tab (decimal 11, hex \x0b, octal \013) \\ Backslash (decimal 92, hex \x5c, octal \134) \ooo ASCII character in octal notation (see examples above) \xhhh ASCII character in hexadecimal notation (see examples above) If a backslash precedes a character that does not appear in the list above, the compiler handles the undefined character as the character itself. For example, \z is treated as a z. Note that in order to place a backslash into a string with escape sequences, you must place "\\" for each "\" that you wish to preserve. For the octal (\ooo) and hexadecimal (\xhhh) escape sequences, the numeric part is taken up to the first non-octal or non-hexadecimal digit, respectively, so you may supply as many digits as you like. However, the ASCII character codes from 1-255 can be represented in three octal digits (\001-\377) and or two hexadecimal digits (\x00-\xff). Since the numeric encoding sequence can be confusing, it is suggested that you always supply 3 octal digits or 2 hexadecimal digits.

Debug.Print McCStr("Line 1.\nLine 2.\nIs this a \x4b, this a \113, and this a K?")
' produces the following output
' Line 1.
' Line 2.
' Is this a K, this a K, and this a K?
Debug.Print McCStr("Here's how you get a backslash ('\\').")
' produces the following output
' Here's how you get a backslash ('\').