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ma701sss

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Textstream - adding new lines, tabs, etc.

I create a textstream in my ASP page and read in a text file. In this text file is an email confirmation standard message, with also the text #ORDERINFO# in it somewhere. What I do once I have read in the text file is to loop through the order info then build a piece of text named orderstxt which has the order details in it. I then replace #ORDERINFO# with orderstxt. The problem is building orderstxt because I can't figure out how to add newlines, tabs, etc.

For example...

For i=0 to ubound(CCcart,2)
      if CCcart(CC_PRODUCTID,i) <> "" then
            orderstxt = orderstxt & "\n " & CCcart(CC_ProductID,i)
      end if
Next

...just puts "\n " into the text instead of creating a newline. Should I be using ASCII characters? I don't understand if what I'm reading in is ASCII, Unicode, etc.
Avatar of minichicken
minichicken

Where are you adding orderstxt to? To the DB or output it to a browser or to a plain text file?

Can you provide an exmaple, of the input and the output.... thanks

Are you looking for a string replace function like this (from w3school):

dim txt
txt="This is a beautiful day!"

document.write(Replace(txt,"beautiful","horrible"))

Output:This is a horrible day!
Avatar of ma701sss

ASKER

My text file has this in it:

<--BEGIN-->
Thanks for your order!

We have pleasure in confirming your order below.

#ORDERINFO#

Please allow 2 to 3 days for your order to arrive.
<--END-->

I then read in to a textstream the text file above. I then want to take the items ordered from the shopping cart and loop through them, adding newline and tab characters, and placing them into the variable orderstxt. The text in #ORDERINFO# is then replaced with orderstxt. I then take the textstream and use it as the body in a CDONTS message, and email it to the customer.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of minichicken
minichicken

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Oh ok...

Now, I understand, I think.....

If your email body is PLAIN TEXT then you will use "\n" and If your email body is HTML then you will need to use "<br>" for "new line".
For TAB, you can use "\t" in PLAIN TEXT but don't think there is TAB in HTML, so you might need to use &nbsp; (non breaking space) instead.

Inserting "new line"

PLAIN TEXT----------------------------------------------------------
For i=0 to ubound(CCcart,2)
     if CCcart(CC_PRODUCTID,i) <> "" then
          orderstxt = orderstxt & "\n " & CCcart(CC_ProductID,i)
     end if
Next

HTML -----------------------------------------------------------------

For i=0 to ubound(CCcart,2)
     if CCcart(CC_PRODUCTID,i) <> "" then
          orderstxt = orderstxt & "<br>" & CCcart(CC_ProductID,i)
     end if
Next

Insert TAB

PLAIN TEXT----------------------------------------------------------
For i=0 to ubound(CCcart,2)
     if CCcart(CC_PRODUCTID,i) <> "" then
          orderstxt = orderstxt & "\t " & CCcart(CC_ProductID,i)
     end if
Next

HTML -----------------------------------------------------------------

For i=0 to ubound(CCcart,2)
     if CCcart(CC_PRODUCTID,i) <> "" then
          orderstxt = orderstxt & "&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;" & CCcart(CC_ProductID,i)
     end if
Next
No, the "\t" doesn't work, as already mentioned.

Your suggestion of chr(9) and chr(13) works.