Introduction
Plain text can be used for
- String values
- Variable names
- Table names
- Procedure names and function names
- Reserved keywords (true, false, else, tab, escape, new line)
These reserved keywords must always be formulated with lower-case characters, otherwise they are treated as plain text.
Rules
Following rules apply for plain text:
- It may consist of any character which does not interfere with the B4P code syntax: Letters, letters combined with numbers, and special symbols not interfering with B4P code syntax (e.g. parentheses, commas, operators, etc.).
- Good example: A.1 (The single point is not a dedicated B4P symbol).
- Bad example: Baden-Baden (The hyphen is interpreted as a minus sign and results in a successful string subtraction. The outcome would be a blank string.
- The text may contain white white spaces (space bar, tab, etc.)
- Example 1: 4200 Pennsylvania Avenue or Number 1
- Example 2: 555 1212 (phone number is a text and not a number because of the space inside)
- Example 3: 1.234.567 (multiple decimal points between numeric digits constitute a text)
- The text must be on the same line.
- Multiple consecutive white spaces inside the text are interpreted as one single space character.
- Example: Hello World is the same as Hello World.
- Leading and trailing spaces are ignored.
- Example: echo(Hello World) outputs the same as echo( Hello World ).
- A lone point (.) specified without quotation marks is also interpreted as a string containing this one character as long it is not a decimal point in a numeral.
- The lone point is also used to reference a current column in partial table specifications.
- Note: Two consecutive points are used for value ranges and do not consitute text contents.
- Reserved keywords are automatically interpreted as part of the B4P syntax, e.g. true as Boolean true, and else is also part of the B4P language.
- If the text is assigned to B4P variables, then the variable assumes the subtype softquoted string.
Examples
echo( Hello World );
echo( Hello World ); // Same as above (Spaces outside the strings are ignored, so are multiple spaces inside)
echo( One + One ); // + sign is an operator, result is 'OneOne'
echo( 'One + One' ); // This one is OK.
echo( Baden-Baden ); // Empty string. Hyphen is treated as minus sign (subtraction of strings)
echo( 'Baden-Baden' ); // This one is OK.
echo( 1. 23 ); // This is a string because a space is inside.
echo( 1 200 ); // Same here. Use function 'clean numeral' to extract 1200 as a number from here
echo( Dial 555 1212 );
echo( this is on, new line, the next line ); // new line is a reserved keyword
echo( Café in Zürich ); // Foreign characters inside
echo( . ); // Lone point
echo( . . . ); // A string containing 3 lone points (. . .), also showing how spaces are collapsing
// echo( .. ); // Would cause an error because .. is a b4p language symbol.
echo( '..' ); // This one is OK
echo( new line, Line 1, new line, Line 2 ); Hello World
Hello World
OneOne
One + One
Baden-Baden
1. 23
1 200
Dial 555 1212
this is on
the next line
Café in Zürich
.
. . .
..
Line 1
Line 2
See also
Text inside single quotation marks
Text inside double quotation marks