How can I include Ì and Î in a string?

[Cathymin]

Hello,

I am trying to include special charactors

Ì and Î in a string. When I pasted them in string constant, they became ?. It looks like LabVIEW cannot recognize these charactors. These are the format charactors used in barcode Code 128b. I am experimenting with IDAutomation Code 128 Font Package. It would be even better if someone has the experience of integrating IDAutomation in LabVIEW and you could share your knowledge.

Thanks,

Cathy

[Thoric]

I was able to copy your text from your post and paste them into a string constant. Is this what you need?

[Cathymin]

Yes. But why cannot I copy and paste it in a string constant? Here is what I got . Thanks a lot for the help.

[Thoric]

Hmm, peculiar. Are you able to see them properly if you use the VI Snippet I provided in my first response?

Which version of LabVIEW are you using? Which OS (Win XP?) ? I suspec this is just a font issue, ie the default application font used by LabVIEW for block diagram text might not support the characters you are trying to enter. Therefore there may be no consequence and those odd looking symbols will be just fine because the underlying ASCII char code is the same.

Try changing the displayed font in your string constant to something else to see if they display any better (such as Times New Roman, or Arial, which both work for me).

[ben64]

Where are you copying the string from? The LabVIEW help specifies: When you transfer a VI that contains built-in fonts to another platform, the fonts correspond as closely as possible. So this may be the source of the error. Can you type the characters Î and Ì directly in the string constant?

Ben64

[Cathymin]

I tried your VI Snippet in LV2010 and now in LV2010 it works properly (thanks) though I cannot explain why?!

It had been working in LV8.0. When I convert it to LV2010, it stopped working until used your Snippet.  I also tried to convert LV2010 to LV8.6 and it did not work. Both LV8.0 and LV8.6 are on Win XP. LV2010 is on Win 7. Now, only LV8.6 does not work no matter how.

I am not sure where I can find the default application font. ? LV only said 13 pt Application Font.

[MarkMoss · Accepted solution]

It looks like the IDAutomation Code 128 barcode font uses code points 203, 204, 205 for start symbols and code point 206 as the stop symbol.  Since the ASCII doesn't define the corresponding characters for these code points, the character displayed will vary from system to system.  If you are using an English-language version of Windows, LabVIEW probably interprets characters according to CP1252, which defines "Ì" as the character for code point 204 and "Î" as the symbol for code point 206.

If you are using a non-English-language version of LabVIEW, or your computer doesn't use the default CP1252 code page for some reason, you will see different symbols for code these code points.  The safest way to specify these values in a string would be to check the "'\' codes display" option, and enter these characters as escape sequences, for example "\CCMyBarcode\CE" for "ÌMyBarcodeÎ". (0xCC and 0xCE are the hexadecimal equivalents of decimal 204 and 206, respectively).

Mark Moss

Electrical Validation Engineer
GHSP

[Cathymin]

The string was generated with a program. It can show correctly in MS Word. Then I copied it from Word to LV string constant, where the weird-looking characters came from. However, after I used Thoric's Snippet, LV2010 suddenly starts recognizing Ì and Î now.

I do not how to type Ì and Π directly in the string constant. I tried their hex values (Ì = 0204 and Î = 0206)  in the hex display and then changed back to Normal Display. It did not convert correclty.

[Cathymin]

IDAutomation Code 128 uses 204 as start and 206 as stop.

Both LabVIEW and Windows I use are English. I tried "\ code dislay" before, but I misinterpreted 204 and 206 as hex 0204 and 0206. Your code with \CC and \CE works in LV2010 (Thanks) though it does not work in LV8.6, which is on a different computer. It might be that the computer with LV8.6 does not use CP1252. How can I find whether it is using CP1252 or not?

[ben64]

When you type the hex value you must use CC and CE not 204 and 206, when you change to normal display you will get Ì and Î. As Mark said it may be your langage version of LabVIEW You can also try to enable some code page conversion tables from the advanced tab of the Regional and Langage Options from the Windows control panel (this is where you will find if 1252 is enable ANSI Latin-1). Try enabling OEM 863.

Ben64