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brian_p_dts
brian_p_dts
Community Expert
April 19, 2023
Answered

[JSX] Can't replace with line break character in text area frame

  • April 19, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 1916 views

Hi all, 

I have a block of Area Text, no returns in it, and am trying to insert a line break into a line if the first character is a tilde (and delete the second character, a space. Below is my function. When I run it, it replaces the tilde with a hard return.  Font is Arial Bold. Running on a Windows machine, AI 27.4.1. Any thoughts? 

 

 

var seekFirstTilde = function(l /*Story.lines[i]*/) {
    try {
        var characs = l.characters;
        var conts = characs[0].contents;
        if (conts == "~") {
            characs[1].remove();
            characs[0].contents = "\n";
        }
    } catch(e) {}
    
    
    //l.characters[idx-1].contents = "\n";
}

 

 

 

 

 

 

Correct answer brian_p_dts

It was alerting as a square box (same if I paste into FR window). It showed a charCodeAt 3, so I ended up using contents = String.fromCharCode(3) and that worked. 

2 replies

femkeblanco
femkeblanco
Brainiac
April 19, 2023

It appears that a new line is converted to a carriage return when a string is assigned to the contents of a text frame. Both the escape character and decimal value change. 

brian_p_dts
brian_p_dtsAuthor
Community Expert
April 19, 2023

Interesting. Maybe I should try at an insertion point instead? 

D
davemyron
Known Participant
October 3, 2024

It seems that the Extendscript File object write() and writeln() do this as well. It's *very* surprising to silently convert characters. For example, this explicit use of write converts the newline to a carriage return:

var f = new File("/tmp/test.log"); 
f.open("w"); 
f.write("test\n");
f.close();

 

Results:

> hexdump /tmp/test.log
0000000 6574 7473 000d
0000005

Same results if I replace `write("test\n")` with `writeln("test")`!

 

This is a surprising bug.

M
Manan Joshi
Community Expert
April 19, 2023

That's strange. How about inserting a soft return manually and reading it via script to see what does Illustrator interpret it as.

-Manan

brian_p_dts
brian_p_dtsAuthorCorrect answer
Community Expert
April 19, 2023

It was alerting as a square box (same if I paste into FR window). It showed a charCodeAt 3, so I ended up using contents = String.fromCharCode(3) and that worked. 

    m1b
    m1b
    Community Expert
    April 19, 2023

    Hi @brian_p_dts, I can't believe I haven't noticed this before (maybe I have and have forgotten). I consider this a bug, due to the behaviour being unexpected—converting U+000A to U+000D silently. And using U+0003 for a linebreak is non-standard, surely.

     

    I have lodged a bug, so feel free to vote on it.

     

    Here is script showing issue clearly:

     

    (function () {

    var doc = app.documents.add();

    var tf1 = doc.textFrames.add();
    tf1.position = [100, 100];
    tf1.contents = 'Break\u000Ame.';
    alert('Linefeed (10)\ncharCode = ' + tf1.contents.charCodeAt(5));

    var tf2 = doc.textFrames.add();
    tf2.position = [200, 100];
    tf2.contents = 'Break\u0003me.';
    alert('End-of-text (3)\ncharCode = ' + tf2.contents.charCodeAt(5));

})();

     

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