Dealing with Data Types - Page 2

Strings

A string is simply a 'string' of characters like "Hello how are you?". Each character can be a number, letter or symbol have their own numerical code called an ASCII code. For example, the ASCII code for the letter "a" is 97. More on this later.

A string is defined by quote marks and tells the computer that everything between the quote marks should be taken literally, including the spaces. All this means is if you use the string "Hello add variable" you are not implying a function or expression (although it looks like one), you are simply (literally) intend it to be the string of characters "Hello add variable". Here's another example,

"Hi there, this is 1 string of letters, numbers and symbols - &%$#^!!!
but it is still a string because its enclosed by brackets!!!"

Now you're probably asking "How do I use quote marks in my string with out affecting the string itself?". Flash 5 has taken this into consideration and created what are called "escape" characters. Every escape character is preceded with a back slash (\). So to add a quote mark, a single quote mark or a back slash character to your string, insert, \", \' or \\ respectively. To help you better understand this have look at the example:

output = "The code is \"big bird\".";

This example will output the string, The code is "big bird". As you can see the quote marks in the string would have effected the string if escape characters hadn't been used. Here is the complete table of escape characters.