Text Expressions and Escape Characters

Owned by Fiona Sargeant (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jul 12, 2022
2 min read

This page is for anyone writing text strings in expressions, macros or scripts. It also includes information about how to escape special characters.

Using Text Expressions

In PhixFlow, a text expression is made up from a string of characters inside double quotes.  Text expressions can also include variable elements so that data from tables or other PhixFlow items can be inserted into the string. The expression must evaluate to a fixed string.

Required output
Example Text Expression
Completed"Completed"
abc"def

To embed a quote mark:

  • Either use  a combination of single and double quotes   'abc"def'
  • Or prefix the quote with a backslash  "abc\"def"

This is different to regular expressions, in which a double-backslash is used to escape characters.

The account number ACC46242 failed

Generate a message including the current account number being processed, which is provided by _out.accountNumber:

"The account number " + _out.accountNumber + " failed"

This message

is finished.

"This message\n" +

"is finished."

Escaping Special Characters

When writing expressions you may need to enter a character that has special meaning. For example, a string could include a double-quote, but in the expression PhixFlow will read this as the end of the string. To tell PhixFlow to ignore a special character, you can use the backslash character.  

You must use a backslash to escape any of the special characters listed in the table below.

CharacterTypeEscape string

backspace

Represented As "\b"
Escaped "\\\\b"
form feedRepresented As "\f"
Escaped"\\\\f"
tabRepresented As"\t"
Escaped "\\\\t"
carraige returnRepresented As"\r"
Escaped "\\\\r"
newlineRepresented As"\n"
Escaped "\\\\n"
backslashRepresented As

"\\\\"

Escaped "\\\\\\\\"
double quoteRepresented As'"'
Escaped '\\\\"'

Example

The following macro escapes special characters. 

Macro
do(
    $value = $args[1],
    $value = replaceAll( $value , "\b","\\\\b"),
    $value = replaceAll( $value , "\f","\\\\f"),
    $value = replaceAll( $value , "\t","\\\\t"),
    $value = replaceAll( $value , "\r","\\\\r"),
    $value = replaceAll( $value , "\n","\\\\n"),
    $value = replaceAll( $value , "\\\\","\\\\\\\\"),
    $value = replaceAll( $value , '"','\\\\"')
)


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