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<h1><a href="../../../index.html">VB6Parse</a> / <a href="../../../library/index.html">Library</a> / <a href="../../../library/functions/string/index.html">String</a> / chr_dollar</h1>
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<h1 id="chr-function">Chr$ Function</h1>
<p>Returns a <code>String</code> containing the character associated with the specified character code.
The dollar sign suffix (<code>$</code>) explicitly indicates that this function returns a <code>String</code> type.</p>
<h2 id="syntax">Syntax</h2>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">Chr$(charcode)</code></pre>
<h2 id="parameters">Parameters</h2>
<ul>
<li><strong><code>charcode</code></strong>: Required. <code>Long</code> value that identifies a character. The valid range for
<code>charcode</code> is 0-255. For values outside this range, an error occurs.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="return-value">Return Value</h2>
<p>Returns a <code>String</code> containing the single character corresponding to the specified character
code. For <code>charcode</code> values 0-127, this corresponds to the ASCII character set. For values
128-255, this corresponds to the extended ASCII or ANSI character set based on the system's
code page.</p>
<h2 id="remarks">Remarks</h2>
<ul>
<li>The <code>Chr$</code> function always returns a <code>String</code>, while <code>Chr</code> (without <code>$</code>) can return a <code>Variant</code>.</li>
<li>Valid range: 0-255 (Error 5 "Invalid procedure call or argument" for values outside range).</li>
<li><code>Chr$(0)</code> returns a null character (<code>vbNullChar</code>).</li>
<li><code>Chr$(13)</code> returns carriage return (<code>vbCr</code>).</li>
<li><code>Chr$(10)</code> returns line feed (<code>vbLf</code>).</li>
<li><code>Chr$(9)</code> returns tab character (<code>vbTab</code>).</li>
<li>Values 0-31 are non-printable control characters.</li>
<li>Values 32-126 are standard printable ASCII characters.</li>
<li>Values 127-255 depend on the system code page (often Windows-1252 in VB6).</li>
<li>The inverse function is <code>Asc</code>, which returns the numeric character code of a character.</li>
<li>For better performance when you know the result is a string, use <code>Chr$</code> instead of <code>Chr</code>.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="common-character-codes">Common Character Codes</h2>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Code</th>
<th>Character</th>
<th>Constant</th>
<th>Description</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>0</td>
<td>(null)</td>
<td><code>vbNullChar</code></td>
<td>Null character</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>9</td>
<td>\t</td>
<td><code>vbTab</code></td>
<td>Horizontal tab</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>10</td>
<td>\n</td>
<td><code>vbLf</code></td>
<td>Line feed</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>13</td>
<td>\r</td>
<td><code>vbCr</code></td>
<td>Carriage return</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>32</td>
<td>(space)</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>Space character</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>34</td>
<td>"</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>Double quote</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>39</td>
<td>'</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>Single quote</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>65</td>
<td>A</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>Uppercase A</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>97</td>
<td>a</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>Lowercase a</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2 id="typical-uses">Typical Uses</h2>
<ol>
<li><strong>Line breaks</strong> - Insert carriage returns and line feeds in strings</li>
<li><strong>Special characters</strong> - Add tabs, quotes, and other special characters</li>
<li><strong>Character generation</strong> - Build strings from character codes</li>
<li><strong>Alphabet generation</strong> - Create sequences of characters programmatically</li>
<li><strong>Tab-separated values</strong> - Format data with tab delimiters</li>
<li><strong>Quote escaping</strong> - Insert quotes within strings</li>
<li><strong>File formatting</strong> - Create properly formatted text files</li>
</ol>
<h2 id="basic-examples">Basic Examples</h2>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">' Example 1: Get character from code
Dim ch As String
ch = Chr$(65) ' Returns "A"</code></pre>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">' Example 2: Lowercase letter
Dim lower As String
lower = Chr$(97) ' Returns "a"</code></pre>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">' Example 3: Special character
Dim space As String
space = Chr$(32) ' Returns " "</code></pre>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">' Example 4: Line break
Dim msg As String
msg = "Line 1" & Chr$(13) & Chr$(10) & "Line 2"</code></pre>
<h2 id="common-patterns">Common Patterns</h2>
<h3 id="multi-line-strings">Multi-line Strings</h3>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">Function CreateMultiLine() As String
Dim result As String
result = "First Line" & Chr$(13) & Chr$(10)
result = result & "Second Line" & Chr$(13) & Chr$(10)
result = result & "Third Line"
CreateMultiLine = result
End Function</code></pre>
<h3 id="tab-separated-values">Tab-Separated Values</h3>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">Function CreateTSV(col1 As String, col2 As String, col3 As String) As String
CreateTSV = col1 & Chr$(9) & col2 & Chr$(9) & col3
End Function</code></pre>
<h3 id="generate-alphabet">Generate Alphabet</h3>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">Function GenerateAlphabet() As String
Dim i As Integer
Dim result As String
For i = 65 To 90
result = result & Chr$(i)
Next i
GenerateAlphabet = result ' Returns "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"
End Function</code></pre>
<h3 id="quote-in-string">Quote in String</h3>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">Function AddQuotes(text As String) As String
AddQuotes = Chr$(34) & text & Chr$(34)
End Function</code></pre>
<h3 id="csv-field-with-quotes">CSV Field with Quotes</h3>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">Function QuoteCSVField(field As String) As String
' Replace " with ""
Dim quoted As String
quoted = Replace(field, Chr$(34), Chr$(34) & Chr$(34))
QuoteCSVField = Chr$(34) & quoted & Chr$(34)
End Function</code></pre>
<h3 id="null-terminated-string">Null-Terminated String</h3>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">Function CreateNullTerminated(text As String) As String
CreateNullTerminated = text & Chr$(0)
End Function</code></pre>
<h3 id="password-mask">Password Mask</h3>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">Function MaskPassword(length As Integer) As String
Dim i As Integer
Dim result As String
For i = 1 To length
result = result & Chr$(42) ' Asterisk
Next i
MaskPassword = result
End Function</code></pre>
<h3 id="character-range-check">Character Range Check</h3>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">Function IsUpperCase(ch As String) As Boolean
If Len(ch) <> 1 Then Exit Function
Dim code As Integer
code = Asc(ch)
IsUpperCase = (code >= 65 And code <= 90)
End Function</code></pre>
<h3 id="build-character-set">Build Character Set</h3>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">Function GetDigitCharacters() As String
Dim i As Integer
Dim result As String
For i = 48 To 57 ' ASCII codes for 0-9
result = result & Chr$(i)
Next i
GetDigitCharacters = result ' Returns "0123456789"
End Function</code></pre>
<h3 id="format-output-with-alignment">Format Output with Alignment</h3>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">Function AlignRight(text As String, width As Integer) As String
Dim padding As Integer
Dim result As String
padding = width - Len(text)
If padding > 0 Then
Dim i As Integer
For i = 1 To padding
result = result & Chr$(32) ' Space
Next i
End If
AlignRight = result & text
End Function</code></pre>
<h2 id="advanced-examples">Advanced Examples</h2>
<h3 id="format-report-header">Format Report Header</h3>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">Function CreateReportHeader() As String
Dim header As String
header = "Name" & Chr$(9) & "Age" & Chr$(9) & "City" & Chr$(13) & Chr$(10)
header = header & String$(40, Chr$(45)) ' Underline with dashes
CreateReportHeader = header
End Function</code></pre>
<h3 id="parse-character-codes">Parse Character Codes</h3>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">Function DecodeCharCodes(codes() As Integer) As String
Dim i As Integer
Dim result As String
For i = LBound(codes) To UBound(codes)
result = result & Chr$(codes(i))
Next i
DecodeCharCodes = result
End Function</code></pre>
<h3 id="create-box-drawing">Create Box Drawing</h3>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">Function CreateBox(width As Integer, height As Integer) As String
Dim result As String
Dim i As Integer
' Top line
result = String$(width, Chr$(45)) & Chr$(13) & Chr$(10)
' Middle lines
For i = 1 To height - 2
result = result & Chr$(124) & Space$(width - 2) & Chr$(124) & Chr$(13) & Chr$(10)
Next i
' Bottom line
result = result & String$(width, Chr$(45))
CreateBox = result
End Function</code></pre>
<h2 id="differences-from-chr">Differences from Chr</h2>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Feature</th>
<th><code>Chr$</code></th>
<th><code>Chr</code></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Return Type</td>
<td>Always <code>String</code></td>
<td>Can return <code>Variant</code></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Performance</td>
<td>Slightly faster</td>
<td>Slightly slower</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Type Safety</td>
<td>Compile-time type checking</td>
<td>Runtime type checking</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Assignment</td>
<td>Can only assign to <code>String</code></td>
<td>Can assign to <code>Variant</code> or <code>String</code></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h2 id="related-functions">Related Functions</h2>
<ul>
<li><code>Chr</code>: Returns character as <code>Variant</code> instead of <code>String</code></li>
<li><code>ChrB$</code>: Returns byte character for double-byte character sets</li>
<li><code>ChrW$</code>: Returns Unicode character</li>
<li><code>Asc</code>: Returns character code for a character (inverse of <code>Chr$</code>)</li>
<li><code>AscB</code>: Returns byte value of first byte in string</li>
<li><code>AscW</code>: Returns Unicode character code</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="error-handling">Error Handling</h2>
<pre><code class="language-vbnet">Function SafeChr(code As Long) As String
On Error Resume Next
SafeChr = Chr$(code)
If Err.Number <> 0 Then
SafeChr = ""
Err.Clear
End If
End Function</code></pre>
<h2 id="performance-considerations">Performance Considerations</h2>
<ul>
<li><code>Chr$</code> is slightly more efficient than <code>Chr</code> because it avoids <code>Variant</code> overhead</li>
<li>For building strings from many characters, consider using a buffer or <code>String$</code> function</li>
<li>Concatenating many <code>Chr$</code> calls can be slow; use arrays and <code>Join</code> for better performance</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="limitations">Limitations</h2>
<ul>
<li>Limited to character codes 0-255 (use <code>ChrW$</code> for full Unicode support)</li>
<li>Character interpretation depends on system code page</li>
<li>Does not validate that the resulting character is printable</li>
<li>No direct support for multi-byte characters (use <code>ChrB$</code> for DBCS)</li>
</ul>
</article>
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