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Author Topic: strange character in vbs  (Read 3905 times)

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zask

    Topic Starter


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    • OS: Other
    strange character in vbs
    « on: February 12, 2016, 11:33:00 AM »
    I found some vbs code online that had a character that appears invisible in browsers but still can be copied, it only appears in text editors like notepad. however I have tried this on windows 7 and it doesn't appear in the correct format. it appears on my windows 10, but when using the this strange character in windows 7 with things variables it prevents the code from working and proceeds to an error.

    to see this character you have to copy the blank line in-between these parenthesis, if you cannot copy between the parenthesis then try copying the parenthesis with the bank line all together. paste in notepad afterwards~

     " "

    the character appears as a "Up-Arrow-Sign" in windows 10 but in windows 7 it appears as an "Egyptian-Ankh-Sign" On some computers you cannot even copy this character and paste into notepad?

    my main question is does anyone know what the name of this symbol is, what it's purpose in vbs, why it is invisible in browsers, and why any of the code that involves this symbol in vbs (Doesn't have to exactly be vbs code) works in windows 10 but doesn't appear correctly on windows 7?

    another thing is that the character in browsers (I'm using Google Chrome) can represent multiple of the same symbols all by using one character space.

    for example copy between the parentheses.

     " "      - - - - - This appears 5 "Up-Arrow-Signs" but only takes up one space.

    Why is this?

    Lastly what makes this character different from other characters like this?

    "©","♣","▓","Ώ","֍","¾"

    Here is a example of what this character can be used for, things like messages, or encryption, or what ever.

    msgbox " some random weird character ",," some random weird character title "

    also if the character does appear on your computer, and you do have a logical explanation to what it is, it would be helpful if you could post your windows version to help me better understand it's symbol over a computerate point of view.

    if it doesn't appear as a "Up-Arrow-Sign" on your computer version, it would be appreciated if you would inform that it doesn't work and post your windows version.

    i have tried this over 5 computers at my school (All windows 7), doesn't work at school but works on my computer at home (Which is windows 10).
    « Last Edit: February 12, 2016, 11:56:19 AM by zask »

    foxidrive



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    Re: strange character in vbs
    « Reply #1 on: February 12, 2016, 12:25:26 PM »
    Have you tried viewing the file in a hex editor/viewer?

    Squashman



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    Re: strange character in vbs
    « Reply #2 on: February 12, 2016, 01:30:42 PM »
    Have you tried viewing the file in a hex editor/viewer?
    Yep.  Look at the hex code and then look at an ASCII Chart.  It will tell you exactly what it is.  You could really cheat and paste it into Notepad++.  It will tell you immediately what that character is.

    Geek-9pm


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    Re: strange character in vbs
    « Reply #3 on: February 12, 2016, 05:25:45 PM »
    The upper set of ASCII characters is not universal. In fact, you have to have a code page for looking at the full SAC II set.
    These links may help.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_code_page
    Quote
    Problems arising from the use of code pages

    Microsoft strongly recommends using Unicode in modern applications, but many applications or data files still depend on the legacy code pages.

        Programs need to know what code page to use in order to display the contents of files correctly. If a program uses the wrong code page it may show text as mojibake.
        The code page in use may differ between machines, so files created on one machine may be unreadable on another.
        Data is often improperly tagged with the code page, or not tagged at all, making determination of the correct code page to read the data difficult.
        These Microsoft code pages differ to various degrees from some of the standards and other vendors' implementations. This isn't a Microsoft issue per se, as it happens to all vendors, but the lack of consistency makes interoperability with other systems unreliable in some cases.
        The use of code pages limits the set of characters that may be used.
        Characters expressed in an unsupported code page may be converted to question marks (?) or other replacement characters, or to a simpler version (such as removing accents from a letter). In either case, the original character may be lost.
    Ofte152 is used in Windows.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows-1252

    Some third-party  programs use their own character set.

    zask

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      Re: strange character in vbs
      « Reply #4 on: February 12, 2016, 05:54:48 PM »
      thank you this helped very much :D
      How do i put the hex in the editor?
      « Last Edit: February 12, 2016, 06:17:52 PM by zask »

      foxidrive



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      Re: strange character in vbs
      « Reply #5 on: February 12, 2016, 09:17:10 PM »
      Look at the hex code and then look at an ASCII Chart.  It will tell you exactly what it is.  You could really cheat and paste it into Notepad++.  It will tell you immediately what that character is.

      Follow Squashman's advice and read the essentials about ASCII - it's a set of numbers which characters can be recognised by. 

      This hex editor is one I've used in the past - easy to install.  XVI

      http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xvi32/xvi32.htm