Character escape codes

Escape sequences use an escape character to change the meaning of the characters which follow it. Escape sequences can be used for two purposes:

• to use non-printable characters in action strings
• quoting: ignore special meaning of a character in eventhandler parser.

The escape sequences are substituted when the eventhandler reads the action string. In the case of Data Protocol Commands ( @ $ ), the escape sequences are substituted before the messages are sent to the Data Protocol Router / Handler.

In the AlphaCom the character backslash (\) is used as escape character. Escape sequences might be used in the EDO command to generate non-printable ASCII characters.

Some frequently used escape sequences:

\r = Carriage Return
\n = Line Feed
\t = Tab 
\xhh = hh is any ASCII value in HEX

Escape sequences:

Escape sequence	Result	Hex code	Description
\,	,	2C	Comma
\(	(	28	Opening parenthese
\)	)	29	Closing parenthese
\"	"	22	Double quote
\;	;	3B	Semicolon
\\	\	5C	Backslash
\%	%	25	Percent
\t	TAB	09	ASCII TAB (Horisontal tab)
\s	SP	20	Space
\r	CR	0D	Carriage return
\n	LF	0A	Line feed
\a	BEL	07	Bell (Alert)
\b	BS	08	Backspace
\0	NUL	00	ASCII NUL
\l		80	Extended NUL ('\x80')
\!			Comment / ignore rest of string
\xhh			'hh' is the ASCII character code as 2 hex digits. Note that you must use 2 digits.
\#hh			'hh' is the ASCII character code as 2 hex digits. Note that you must use 2 digits.

By using the escape sequence '\xhh' all sorts of ASCII characters can be generated.