Escaping the $ character in snippets

Question

I find myself doing a ton of jQuery these days, so I started to abstract out some of the common things I do into snippets. I look forward to sharing these with the community, but I'm running into an issue right now.

The literals in snippets are defined by adding dollar signs ($) around the name of the literal to delimit where the value you would like to provide will go. This is difficult because jQuery uses the dollar sign notation in order to use a lot of its functionality.

What is the escape sequence for snippets, so I am able to use the dollar sign, and have my snippets still function?

More of a side note, but don't forget you can use `jQuery` instead of `$` — Dan Heberden, Jul 09 '10 at 19:09
Note: This question is about _Visual Studio_, not _Visual Studio Code_; however, [this particular answer](https://stackoverflow.com/a/43427442/45375) is about the latter. — mklement0, Feb 23 '20 at 18:47

score 180 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 09 '10 at 19:03

180

To have a literal $ try doubling it: $$

answered Jul 09 '10 at 19:03

Ahmad Mageed

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@JosephMorgan It worked for me in C# (VS2015 for reference). – RB. Aug 23 '16 at 14:38
19

This approach still keep the cursor jumping to this position when tab is used. With this [answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/43427442/1909798) I could escape correctly. – robsonrosa Apr 27 '17 at 20:44
@robsonrosa it seems the answer you linked to emphasizes VSC (Visual Studio Code perhaps), so things may have changed between Visual Studio versions. – Ahmad Mageed Apr 27 '17 at 21:17
@AhmadMageed my bad. upvoting ;) – robsonrosa May 11 '17 at 18:01
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Worked for me also! VS2015 – Craig Mayers Jun 08 '17 at 09:17
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Works in VS2017, C# – SvdSinner Jan 24 '18 at 15:42
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Dear downvoters: this question and answer is old. It may not work in today's latest version. Rather than downvote, just upvote another answer that works with VSC or whatever version you're on. – Ahmad Mageed Apr 23 '18 at 17:15
3

Works for me in C#, VS2017. – Setyo N Dec 17 '18 at 01:59
3

Works in VS2019, C# – Damian Vogel Jul 26 '19 at 18:16
1

It works but it's not ideal, the next solution should be the approved one to escape "\\$" – Rares Hideg Feb 17 '21 at 21:36
Wow man searching for this for so long to escape this inside CDATA in XML and also for code snippet in Visual studio – Chandraprakash Aug 04 '21 at 21:28
3

Still works in VS 2022 – Mindstormer Jan 21 '22 at 00:31

score 118 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 23 '20 at 19:53

118

This is the right way for Visual Studio Code: \\$.

This makes the $ a literal part of the snippet rather than the start of a $-prefixed construct.

edited Feb 23 '20 at 19:53

mklement0

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answered Apr 15 '17 at 14:49

Jesus David Sanchez Suarez

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This doesn't mess up the tabbing in VSC. IE if you use the `$$` approach VSC assumes that you want to do something in those positions. – Elias Ranz Sep 04 '18 at 14:07
6

This should be the accepted answer. The currently accepted answer messes up when tabbing between $variables. – hunt Oct 01 '18 at 15:02
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@hunt: This is the right answer for Visual Studio _Code_, whereas the question and the accepted answer are about _Visual Studio_. – mklement0 Feb 23 '20 at 19:54
Still holds up in late 2021. – Jay Cummins Dec 02 '21 at 13:21

score 26 · Answer 3 · edited Aug 08 '23 at 11:52

26

There is an "Delimiter" attribute defined for a Code element. This defaults to $ but you can set it to a different character like ~ or so.

<Snippet>
<Code Language="JavaScript" Delimiter="~"><![CDATA[(function ($) {
    $(document).ready(function () {

    });
})(jQuery);]]></Code>
</Snippet>

edited Aug 08 '23 at 11:52

gunr2171

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answered Feb 25 '13 at 15:31

Dirk Seefeld

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Not sure why this is not the accepted answer. `Delimiter` is _attribute that specifies the delimiter used to describe literals and objects in the code_ and its exact purpose is to replace the `$` if needed.`<![CDATA[Log.Debug(message: $"!end!");]]>` – mdisibio May 18 '20 at 17:19

score 8 · Answer 4 · edited Apr 21 '17 at 23:15

8

Although the jQuery response is valid, it's a nicer syntax to use the $ notation.

I've found an answer: Making the $ character a literal with a default value of $.

<Literal Editable="true">

<ID>dollar</ID> <ToolTip>replace the dollar sign character</ToolTip> <Default>$</Default> <Function> </Function> </Literal>

edited Apr 21 '17 at 23:15

Peter Mortensen

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answered Jul 09 '10 at 19:14

cory-fowler

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I found that this works in C# for using the "$" for a Formattable string type. – Joseph Morgan Jun 01 '16 at 18:25
I wasn't sure if adding an example was a comment or an answer, so because of length I added it below. It is based on this answer. – Joseph Morgan Jun 01 '16 at 18:38

score 3 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:34

I used this for a formattable string in C#. I used the example above from cory-fowler verbatim:

<Literal Editable="true">
    <ID>dollar</ID>
    <ToolTip>Replace the dollar sign character</ToolTip>
    <Default>$</Default>
    <Function></Function>
</Literal>

Usage (line breaks are added for clarity on Stack Overflow, not in the original.):

    string errMessage = $dollar$"Error occurred in
       {MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().Module}, in procedure
       {MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().Name}: {ex.Message}".ToString();

Thanks, cory-fowler!

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Sep 07 '20 at 14:03

I found the above cory-fowler answer useful, but was frustrated that the literal $ was pre-selected when executing a C# snippet in VS 2019...

It was also ignoring my $end$ keyword...

<![CDATA[string Literal_edit_true = $dollar$"$end$";]]>

Simply changing to Editable=false resolved the issue and now the cursor appears at $end$ ready to type...

<Snippet>
    <Code Language="CSharp">
        <![CDATA[string Literal_edit_false = $dollar$"$end$";]]>
    </Code>
    <Declarations>
        <Literal Editable="false">
            <ID>dollar</ID>
            <ToolTip>Replace the dollar sign character</ToolTip>
            <Default>$</Default>
            <Function></Function>
        </Literal>
    </Declarations>
</Snippet>

Escaping the $ character in snippets

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