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Wide Strings

A wide character string data type is provided for dealing with Unicode fonts, which use 16-bit character codes (used for many Far-Eastern fonts) instead of the standard 8-bit codes (used with most Western fonts). Here’s a syntax sample for a wide character string:

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WIDECHAR WChar[40]

The statement above declares a wide character string containing 40 elements, for a total of 80 bytes. A wide character string can be used in the same manner as other character strings. It maintains a length field that can be set using SET_LENGTH_STRING and retrieved using LENGTH_STRING.

Example:

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WIDECHAR StrExp[6]
INTEGER StrLen

StrExp = {STOP, 500, 'OFF', X}
StrLen = LENGTH_STRING(StrExp)

In the example above, if STOP is 2 and X is a wide character whose value is 1000, the string expression will evaluate to "2, 500, 79, 70, 70, 1000" and StrLen is 6. Each array element can now assume a value of up to 65,535 rather than the 255 limit imposed by the standard character string.

A CHAR string may be assigned or compared to a wide character string.

Example:

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WChar = 'FFWD'

or

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IF (WChar = 'REV')
{
    (* statements *)
}

Each 8-bit character in the CHAR string is converted to 16-bit before the assignment or comparison operation is performed.

See Also