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Creating Web Services

Embedding Double Quotes

Written by Eric Smith, Northstar Computer Systems LLC

One common thing you have to do when writing ASP is to generate links in HTML. This often involves embedding double quote characters in your printed output, like this:
Response.Write "<a href=""contents.asp?id=253"">Click here</a>"
While the double quotes in the link are not required, they are recommended. This code gets even worse if you are embedding a variable value in for the ASP file name, as in this example that uses the SCRIPT_NAME server variable.
Response.Write _
   "<a href=""" & Request("SCRIPT_NAME") & "?id=253"">Click here</a>"
A trick I came up with was to define a constant for the double quote character, called DQ in this example:
Const DQ = """"
Yes, there are four double quote characters here -- the first and last delimit the string, and the inner two represent a double quote character that we want to print. The previous code becomes:
Response.Write _
   "<a href=" & DQ & Request("SCRIPT_NAME") & "?id=253" _
   & DQ & ">Click here</a>"
For new users like the ones I'm teaching, this is easier to understand than the three double quote characters in a row.

Keywords: [ Uncategorized ASP Tips ]

Publication Date: 7/1/2000