[Gambas-user] Split and escape characters

[Mike Keehan]

> richard terry wrote:
>> "Escape is an escape character. Any separator characters enclosed between two 
>> escape characters are ignored in the splitting process. If Escape contains 
>> two characters, then the first is the starting escape character, and the 
>> second the ending one. "
>>
>> So says the Docs, escape is even underlined.
>>
>> For a dummy line me What are escape characters? (I mean not just what they do, 
>> but can someone list them, show an example)
>>
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
> 
> 
> Hey Richard - Try this:
> 
> Dim SPL as String[]
> Dim MSG as string
> 
> MSG = "This Line,Is Split at,The Commas"
> 
> SPL = Split(MSG, ",")
> 
> You can now read the contents of SPL[0] etc
> 
> The comma is used as an escape char in this case, although it can be 
> quite a few other symbols. Be careful though, because not all of the 
> symbols you can type can be used it seems, but # @ ~ ^ all seem to work.
> 

Er, no.  Those commas are separators.

An escape is given as the third parameter to Split().  You can choose 
what character you want as an escape.  A single quote is used as an 
escape in this version:-


  Dim SPL as String[]
  Dim MSG as String
  DIM Sout as String

  MSG = "This Line, Is Split at, The Commas, 'except, for, this,' bit."

  SPL = Split(MSG, ",", "'")

  FOR EACH Sout in SPL
    PRINT Sout
  NEXT


Should print something like -

"This Line"
" Is Split at"
" The Commas"
" except, for, this, bit."

What the pair of these single quote escape characters do is to prevent 
any splitting occurring to the text between them.

Using two escapes is similar :-


  Dim SPL as String[]
  Dim MSG as String
  DIM Sout as String

  MSG = "This Line, Is Split at, The Commas, (except, for, this,) bit."

  SPL = Split(MSG, ",", "()")

  FOR EACH Sout in SPL
    PRINT Sout
  NEXT


Should print something like -

"This Line"
" Is Split at"
" The Commas"
" except, for, this, bit."

Which characters you use for escapes depends on the contents of the 
text that you are splitting.  You might not need escapes at all.

Mike.