specify string format

[Spiff314]

Hi

I'm looking for a way to specify the format of string without changing the information in the string.

Fx if I have a string which is displayed as "3100" in the normal display style, I would like it to be displayed as "3100" in the hexadecimal display style.

Thus I am not looking for a way to convert the data in the string but rather a way to specify format of the string.

Any smart way of doing this?

[rolfk]

I'm not understanding what you want. There is something like presentation of a string, which is the display style and the actual content of it. I don't see any other way of trying to do something about presenting a string.

A 4 byte string of the characters '3', '1', '0', '0' can not be displayed in hexidecimal view as 3100, which would be only two bytes, without throwing away data.

[JÞB]

Seriously?

OK back to basics.  a "String" is really an array of unsigned bytes, U8s, or Characters.   each character is a number between 0 and 255 inclusive.  Thats all the computer knows about its value period!  

Now when we display the value of a string we have several options:

• Display the ASCii representation of the array (Normal display)
• Escape unprinable ASCii codes and show them as somethig else (New Line =ASCii 0x0A = 0b00001010 shown as "\n" for an example)
• Show the value of the individual bytes using a convienient radix (Hexadecimal is convienient) 
• show all characters as "*" regardless of the characters value

None of these display methods change the value of the charaters or the whole string

So asking for a string that displays [51, 49, 48, 48] as anything other than:

"3100" Normal

"3100" escape codes (No unprintable characters)

"3331 0000" Hex

"****" Password

Is really insane since [51, 49, 48, 48] ("3100" normal) is not equal to [ 49, 00] ("3100" Hex)

[crossrulz]

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Jeff·Þ·Bohrer wrote:

So asking for a string that displays [51, 49, 48, 48] as anything other than:

"3100" Normal

"3100" escape codes (No unprintable characters)

"3331 0000" Hex

"****" Password

Is really insane since [51, 49, 48, 48] ("3100" normal) is not equal to [ 49, 00] ("3100" Hex)

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Except that "0" = 0x30.  So the hex display would be "3331 3030".

[JÞB]

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@crossrulz wrote:

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Jeff·Þ·Bohrer wrote:

So asking for a string that displays [51, 49, 48, 48] as anything other than:

"3100" Normal

"3100" escape codes (No unprintable characters)

"3331 3030" Hex  {EDIT:Yup- thanks Tim.  my coffee pot was out earlier}

"****" Password

Is really insane since [51, 49, 48, 48] ("3100" normal) is not equal to [ 49, 00] ("3100" Hex)

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Except that "0" = 0x30.  So the hex display would be "3331 3030".

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