Text Expressions and Escape Characters
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 |
|
abc"def | To embed a quote mark:
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:
|
This message 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.
Character | Type | Escape string |
|---|---|---|
backspace | Represented As |
|
Escaped |
| |
form feed | Represented As |
|
Escaped |
| |
tab | Represented As |
|
Escaped |
| |
carraige return | Represented As |
|
Escaped |
| |
newline | Represented As |
|
Escaped |
| |
backslash | Represented As |
|
Escaped |
| |
double quote | Represented 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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