spec

Software for Diffraction

2.3.7. - String Constants



Strings are delimited by pairs of single or double quotes. The following escape sequences, introduced by a backslash, can be included within strings to represent certain special characters:
 \a   attention, audible alert (bell) 
 \b   back space 
 \f   form feed 
 \n   newline 
 \r   carriage return 
 \t   horizontal tab 
 \\   backslash 
 \'   single quote 
 \"   double quote 
 \ooo   octal code 
  
 \[xx]   tty control code 



Tty control codes are only recognized when embedded in strings passed to spec's built-in functions tty_move() and tty_fmt(). The recognized strings for xx are described in the description of the tty_cntl() function 2.4.2.5

For any other character x, \x is just that character. The sequence \ooo represents one to three octal digits that have the ASCII value of a single character. For example, \033 represents the escape character.

A character string can be continued over more than one line by using a \ at the end of a line. On the other hand, new lines not preceded with a \ are inserted literally into the string.