Translating VB6 chars to C# strings

Question

I want to upgrade an old VB6 project to newer technologies and I have these values below and don't know how to translate them.

Chr(&H31) & Chr(&H1) & Chr(&H50) & Chr(&H31) & Chr(&H17)

So my first question is how do I identify these? Is it hexadecimal values or something else? I don't seem to find them in a ascii table. What does the 'H' stand for?

Secondly, how do I make a c# string out of this?

possible duplicate of [What's the equivalent of VB's Asc() and Chr() functions in C#?](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/721201/whats-the-equivalent-of-vbs-asc-and-chr-functions-in-c) — DavidG, Nov 07 '14 at 13:24
I've tried to convert them with Convert.ToChar() but it doesn't recognize the values — Dave, Nov 07 '14 at 13:24
Look at the answer posted by DavidG. Also, yes `&H31` is a hexadecimal value. So in C# you'd write: `0x31` — MrPaulch, Nov 07 '14 at 13:26

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 07 '14 at 13:29

8

Chr converts a character code into the character, in C# you can just cast:

char c1 = (char)0x31;

(Also changing to use C#'s hexidecimal literals rather than VB6's.)

But when building a string, using escapes is easier:

string s1 = "\x31\x01\x50\x31\x16";

answered Nov 07 '14 at 13:29

Richard

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Note that "special" characters like `\x01` (anything below `\x20`) indicate binary data are not necessarily safe in a string. Depending on the use, a byte array may be better. – Deanna Nov 07 '14 at 13:44

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 07 '14 at 13:50

As your "characters" include special/control/unprintable characters (1<SOH>P1<ETB>), I expect this is actually non string data, and as such should not be stored as a string.

Depending on the actual desired usage, you will be better off with a byte array:

byte[] data = new byte[] { 0x31, 0x01, 0x50, 0x31, 0x17 }

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 07 '14 at 13:27

If you are not able to identify the function parameter and still wnat the same result, you can always call the native VB function from your C# application.

You just need to add the reference Microsoft.VisualBasic
Call the function Strings.Chr

You are more confident of the result :)

Translating VB6 chars to C# strings

3 Answers3