Knowledge Base

FIX: Write Statement Prints Double-Quote(")

Article ID: 198609

Article Last Modified on 3/7/2005

Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Standard Edition
Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Professional Edition
Microsoft Visual Basic 4.0 Enterprise Edition

This article was previously published under Q198609

SYMPTOMS

The Write statement prints out a double-quote within a string field where this should not be allowed.

CAUSE

The Write statement is intended to work with the Input statement. A string field is started and terminated with double quotes, thus placing a double quote within the field indicates the end of the field.

RESOLUTION

If you need to print out a nested double quote, you need to use the Print statement.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a bug in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. This bug has been fixed in Visual Basic 5.0.

MORE INFORMATION

Steps to Reproduce Behavior

Create a new project. Form1 is created by default.

Insert the following code into the Form's code window.

      Private Sub Form_Load()
         Open "test.txt" For Output As #1
         Write #1, "Bob " & Chr(34) & "The Man" & Chr(34) & " Bulldog"
         Close #1
      End Sub

Run the project, then open the file, Test.txt, in Notepad. It contains the following:

"Bob "The Man" Bulldog"

If you try the preceding code sample in Visual Basic 5.0 or later, it results in the following:

"Bob ""The Man"" Bulldog"

To achieve the results of Visual Basic 4.0 in Visual Basic 5.0 or later, use the following:

   Print #1, "Bob " & Chr(34) & "The Man" & Chr(34) & " Bulldog"

Keywords: kbbug kbfix kbvbp500fix kbfileio KB198609