Character Literals in Format Strings

1. Character Literals at Compile Time

A character literal is a value. It is usually assigned to a variable of type char. Character literals in C# are enclosed in single-quote characters.

Whenever the format string comes from code, the compiler will take care of converting the character literals into their Unicode representation:

Example:

string.Format("\t")   
Smart.Format("\t")    
// resulting character in both cases: TAB

2. Character Literals Created at Runtime?

Things are different, when the format string is read from a file or resource. Example:

string.Format(@"Read from a file \t")   
// result: "Read from a file \t"

In the majority of cases this is not the desired outcome.

3. Convert From String to Character Literal

There is a property ConvertCharacterStringLiterals in SmartSettings. This setting is relevant for interpreting character literals. If true (the default), character string literals will be treated just like the compiler would do. E.g.: string "\t" becomes char '\t', string "\n" becomes char '\n' etc. Very easy to read and good to control.

a) ConvertCharacterStringLiterals = true

string.Format("\t") and Smart.Format(@"\t") will return a "TAB" character

Character literals are allowed in all formatters.

b) ConvertCharacterStringLiterals = false

Character string literals are not converted. string.Format(@"\t") and SmartFormat(@"\t") will return the 2 characters '\' and 't'.