Preventing VB.NET's multiline/verbatim string from destroying your entire code file? - vb.net

Let's say you have a module that's several hundreds of lines long. At the very top of your code file, you go to start up a string, so you type a quote. Total wreckage ensues as the string remains unterminated for a time, causing everything within your entire code file to be subject to erratic encapsulation by your string (see image for actual example of all the errors generated). No big deal, right? You just finish your string and all the errors will go away. While true, you may find the IDE has had its way with other strings in your document. For example, these lines...
oLog.writeLogFile("Starting System Update and Version Update ")
oLog.writeLogFile("Starting Script for Fetching Data from Source to Dest")
...get changed to this:
oLog.writeLogFile("Starting System Update And Version Update ")
oLog.writeLogFile("Starting Script For Fetching Data from Source To Dest")
Notice how and changes to And, for to For, and to to To. What's happening here is that, as other strings in the document become... eh... "destrung"... so some of the words that were once part of a string are now interpreted as keywords by the IDE. Because it's VB, it modifies capitalization automatically. When you finally terminate your string, all the other strings further down in the document become properly terminated as well, but the jarring effects still remain.
Is there a way to prevent this from occurring?

Why not first type a double ", then return in between them and start typing your string? I do it all the time to prevent this. I find that the short delay in between typing your first " and the moment the IDE starts capitalizing keywords is long enough for me to (remember to) type the second ".

Related

Meaning of (052) at the end of text literal?

Really just a curious question.
Here are a few examples of the same concern that I have since they are being exported to the FM "REUSE_ALV_GRID_DISPLAY" for parameter "it_fieldcat".
ls_fieldcat-seltext_l = 'Material number'(052).
ls_fieldcat-seltext_m = 'Material'(053).
ls_fieldcat-seltext_s = 'Mat.'(054).
I tried removing the numbers on the right and executed the program but I didn't see any differences and I also tried to see what happens inside debug mode but it only fills the field with the string value, am I missing something or is there something that I wasn't able to notice?
I've been tasked to create a copy of a program which originally joins multiple tables and filters them according to the Parameters from the SELECTION-SCREEN and then shows the results in an ALV Grid Report, but for the use case of the copy it should instead populate a table in ECC that we will then be replicating to BW side. I have successfully copied and modified it accordingly but I can't seem to understand what the numbers beside the strings are doing.
Can someone please explain what their use is, would be very grateful to see a few examples.
Thanks!
The number in the brackets is a text symbol defined as a part of the text elements of the program. Using the syntax 'Literal'(idf) replaces these literals in the program if the symbol is in the currently loaded text pool.

How to determine Thousands Separator using Format in VBA

I would like to determine the Thousand Separator used while running a VBA Code on a target machine without resolving to calling system built-in functions such as (Separator = Application.ThousandsSeparator).
I am using the following simple code using 'Format':
ThousandSeparator = Mid(Format(1000, "#,#"), 2, 1)
The above seems to work fine, and would like to confirm if this is a safe method of doing it without resorting to system calls.
I would expect the result to be a single char string in the form of , or . or ' or a Space as applicable to the locale on the machine.
Please note that I want to only use a language statement such as Format or similar (no sys calls). Also this relates to Thousands Separator not Decimal Separator. This article Using VBA to detect which decimal sign the computer is using does not help or answer my question. Thanks
Thanks in advance.
The strict answer to whether it is safe to use Format to get the thousands separator is No.
E.g. on Windows, it is possible to enter up to three characters into the Thousands Separator field in the regional settings in the control panel.
Suppose you enter asd and click OK.
If you now call Format(1000, "#,#") it will give you 1a000. That is only the first letter of your thousands separator. You have failed to retrieve it correctly.
Reading the registry:
? CreateObject("WScript.Shell").RegRead("HKCU\Control Panel\International\sThousand")
you get back asd in full.
To be fair, the Excel international properties do not seem to be of much help either. Application.International(xlThousandsSeparator) in this situation will return the separator originally defined in your computer's locale, not the value you've overridden it to.
Having that said, the practical answer is Yes, because it would appear (and if you happen to know for sure, please post an answer here) that there is no culture with multi-char thousand separator (even in China where scary things like 1億2345万6789 or 1億2345萬6789 exist, they happen to be represented with just one UTF-16 character), and you probably are happy to ignore the people who decided to play with their locale settings in that fashion.

Replacing first and last character of every word using REGEXP_REPLACE

My question is somewhat specific, I'm not using any kind of code compiler to achieve the result in the title, I am using a IRC Client that allows the use of "Quirks" so the users can have specific mannerisms when chatting, like starting every word with an uppercase, or changing every "s" into a "2".
Problem is that I can't see the whole code so even though I'm not familiar with REGEXP_REPLACE it makes things harder to learn.
The client simplifies the whole coding process, here's a screenshot of the
interface
Filling the text boxes with "^(\w)" and "upper(\1)" respectively makes the first character capitalized, "(\w)$" and "upper(\1)" does the same with the last character.
I've discovered that "\b(\w)" will uppercase the first character of every word, i've tried "\b(\w)%" for the last character but it didn't work, as there is some syntax error, probably...
So, how do I get every last character capitalized?
1:

Test of a regex (substring) occurs anywhere in any of the items in an array of strings

My spec wants to test if a certain substring occurs withing any entry of an array of strings.
p #banner.errors.messages[:base] #=> ["Specify a leader text or an image, not both"]
All my spec really wants to know, is whether or not the "not both" string occurs in any of the array-items in there.
#banner.errors.messages[:base].should include(/not both/)
fails, because "not both" is not included in ["Specify a leader text or an image, not both"]
Note: When I test against the literal string (should include("Specify...both"), things work. But that seems dirty to me. Such user-faced texts are not critical for the test to pass; and such texts will change: every time the error message is changed, I will need to update my tests.
Maybe like this?
#banner.errors.messages[:base].join.should match(/not both/)
But note that there is a edge case where the match might be over two or more lines, e.g. a line ending with "not " and the next line is " both".

Asc(Chr(254)) returns 116 in .Net 1.1 when language is Hungarian

I set the culture to Hungarian language, and Chr() seems to be broken.
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture = "hu-US"
System.Threading.Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentUICulture = "hu-US"
Chr(254)
This returns "ţ" when it should be "þ"
However, Asc("ţ") returns 116.
This: Asc(Chr(254)) returns 116.
Why would Asc() and Chr() be different?
I checked and the 'wide' functions do work correctly: ascw(chrw(254)) = 254
Chr(254) interprets the argument in a system dependent way, by looking at the System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.TextInfo.ANSICodePage property. See the MSDN article about Chr. You can check whether that value is what you expect. "hu-US" (the hungarian locale as used in the US) might do something strange there.
As a side-note, Asc() has no promise about the used codepage in its current documentation (it was there until 3.0).
Generally I would stick to the unicode variants (ending on -W) if at all possible or use the Encoding class to explicitly specify the conversions.
My best guess is that your Windows tries to represent Chr(254)="ţ" as a combined letter, where the first letter is Chr(116)="t" and the second ("¸" or something like that) cannot be returned because Chr() only returns one letter.
Unicode text should not be handled character-by-character.
It sounds like you need to set the code page for the current thread -- the current culture shouldn't have any effect on Asc and Chr.
Both the Chr docs and the Asc docs have this line:
The returned character depends on the code page for the current thread, which is contained in the ANSICodePage property of the TextInfo class. TextInfo.ANSICodePage can be obtained by specifying System.Globalization.CultureInfo.CurrentCulture.TextInfo.ANSICodePage.
I have seen several problems in VBA on the Mac where characters over 127 and some control characters are not treated properly.
This includes paragraph marks (especially in text copied from the internet or scanned), "¥", and "Ω".
They cannot always be searched for, cannot be used in file names - though they could in the past, and when tested, come up as another ascii number. I have had to write algorithms to change these when files open, as they often look like they are the right character, but then crash some of my macros when they act strangely. The character will look and act right when I save the file, but may be changed when it is reopened.
I will eventually try to switch to unicode, but I am not sure if that will help this issue.
This may not be the issue that you are observing, but I would not rule out isolated problems with certain characters like this. I have sent notes to MS about this in the past but have received no joy.
If you cannot find another solution and the character looks correct when you type it in, then I recommend using a macro snippet like the one below, which I run when updating tables. You of course have to setup theRange as the area you are looking at. A whole file can take a while.
For aChar = 1 To theRange.Characters.count
theRange.Characters(aChar).Select
If Asc(Selection.Text) = 95 And Selection.Text <> "_" Then Selection.TypeText "Ω"
Next aChar