Calc- how to include ASCII non-print chars?

[Tony O]

I'm writing a calculation that needs to include ASCII non-printing characters - specifically, ASCII 2, (STX); 3 (ETX); and 26 (SYN). How do I get these values into the result? Any help thoroughly appreciated - thanks!

Tony

[BobWeaver]

Create a global field for each different character. Then copy them from another application such as a text editor, and paste them into the global. Then when you need to use the character in a formula, just call up the global field.

[Tony O]

Thanks Bob, but that's not the problem. I need to know, how do you actually GET the ASCII character to be recognized? Does Filemaker do that? After all, these are non-printing characters. If they were tabs or a space, i'd just put them in the calc in quotes; that works every time for those.

I've tried to paste them in from a text editor (BBEdit), but the strings it generates do not work; the calc just returns the string and not the character. I need to somehow get filemaker to say hello to the escape.

Any ideas?

Thanks-

Tony

[BobWeaver]

When there isn't any way to generate them from the keyboard, I use a hex editor program to enter the ascii code and then copy from there. I have attached a file with these characters.

BTW, I think STX and ETX are control-S and control-Q respectively, and there should be a keyboard equivalent for SYN but I don't have my handy reference in front of me.

AsciiCodes.fp7.zip

[QuinTech]

Hmm, just pulling this out of my ***, but using this chart and noting that you can type 0 by holding down the Alt key and typing (on the numeric keypad) 48 (0x30), you can type 1 with Alt-49 (0x31), 2 with Alt-50 (0x32), ...

Knowing that, I wonder if you can get your characters with Alt-2, Alt-3, and Alt-26 ?

Anyone out there know how to translate what I just wrote into Mac?

J

[QuinTech]

Experimenting further, I tried typing those into this reply window, and the preview came up with ☻ ♥ →

That is,

ASCII 2 = ☻

ASCII 3 = ♥

ASCII 26 = →

Depending on your goal (if it's other than getting them to display in FM) you might use these escape codes.

[BobWeaver]

I was wrong. I should have remembered, the control character is simply the position in the alphabet of the ASCII code. So:

STX = 2 = Ctrl-B

ETX = 3 = Ctrl-C

SYN = 26 = Ctrl-Z

However the application you are using may interpret some of them as cursor controls. Example Ctrl-A is <home>.

[Brian C]

I have been able to successfully create these characters in an OS X App called Tex-Edit Plus and copy and paste them directly into a filemaker calc encapsualted in quotes (FMPv6). When in browse mode the characters look like squares. If you do not want them to show, you just need to find a font that does not have a default display character for these values.

Tex-Edit has a popup menu at the bottom left corner of the window that can be used to evaluate a selected character to see what it is, or to type a special character without having to use a keyboard combination. As an example, when the STX character is selected from the menu, it also displays what the character will look like in the selected font, as well as "Ctrl-B 2 0x02"

The editing window also displays the line number and the character position of the cursor.

[Tony O]

Thanks all - That worked! Excellent! Bob that little file was perfect.

Now I have another problem - barcode related. This is all going to a plug-in to generate a 2D barcode. It works great until I get over a certain number of fields (10) then the plugin crashes FM. Emailing the developer on it now, hoepfully it'll work. I really don't want to have to use Access for this solution...

Thanks again to all, that was quuick and clean! I'll post the developer's input on the barcode crash for those interested.

Tony

[BobWeaver]

Just for future reference, here is an excellent Mac Hex editor:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=9366

[Tony O]

Thanks Bob-

I contacted the developer, and they are looking at the crashng problem with the 2D plugin I'm using. They also pointed me at a free plugin to generate ASCII characters in a calculation. In fact it does more than that- very slick. here's the URL-

aUtil Plugin Page

Mac and PC versions. Little to no documentation, it's true, but the functions are (pretty much) self-explanatory.

thanks again!

Tony