Let's say I have three variables A, B and C and I set their values to TOM, DICK, and HARRY respectively. When my plugin runs I can conveniently split, A,"TOM",B,"DICK",C,"HARRY" using the comma character. This gives me an array of strings like:
0 - A
1 - "TOM" This is the value for variable A.
2 - B
3 - "DICK" This is the value for variable B.
4 - C
5 - "HARRY" and this is the value for variable C.
In my plugin if I want to replace the value for C with "SPOT THE DOG", I can search the strings for C, which I find in index 4 and I know that what's in 5 is what I overwrite with "SPOT THE DOG", giving C a new value. I then concatenate all the elements joining them with a comma and that's what the plugin passes back to IA when it returns. I then presume that IA will do something like splitting them using the comma and can then get the values. None of this is difficult and it all works fine. Where I have a problem, is when I pass in text values to variables (Set Variable statement) which contain commas as part of the text. For example, lets say I put some commas as part of the text in variable B, like this: A,"TOM",B,"D,I,C,K",C,"HARRY". If I split the array using commas I get this:
0 - A
1 - "TOM"
2 - B
3 - "D
4 - I
5 - C
6 - K"
7 - C
8 - "HARRY"
In a "well-formed" list of variable names and values, the variable names are usually in index positions 0, 2, 4... and the values would be in 1, 3, 5... but in my previous example the commas which should remain part of "D,I,C,K" breaks the clean rule where I can find the variable names. It gets a little worse if I have a variable using double quotes and commas in the text because not even Excel can cleanly interpret where commas are part of text and where they are column breaks.
If I write the string containing the variables and their values as my plugin gets it from the bridge, everything looks quite okay but the moment I split using the comma character then all hell breaks loose.
Has anybody handled such an anomaly before when writing a plugin? Providing I don't use commas in a variable then everything is fine but it's quite legal to create a variable and put anything in for its value, comma included.
If the bridge could pass the variables and values to a plugin like this: A,3,"TOM",B,7,"D,I,C,K",C,5,"HARRY" a string parser could easily be written and find variable A and the next component, 3, tells it there are three characters, TOM. For variable B the next component, 7, lets you isolate D,I,C,K and so on. Sorry for the length of this post and I hope it's not too confusing what my problem is and I'd appreciate any coding suggestions that'll give me a robust mechanism to handle it. Just to put this into perspective, here is an actual string the bridge gives me:
ABORTEDONERROR,FALSE,REPAIR,FALSE,EXEDIR,C:\Temp\111111111111111111111\Release\Uncompressed\,TARGETDIR,"C:\Program Files (x86)\111111111111111111111\",FREDSRESULT,-1,WIZARD,NEXT,MYAH_thFinished,FALSE,REMOVE,FALSE,COMPLETE,TRUE,EXEFILE,C:\Temp\111111111111111111111\Release\Uncompressed\111111111111111111111.exe,WINDOWHANDLE,0,CHARSET_OVERRIDE,,MAINTENANCE,FALSE,NEEDSUPGRADE,FALSE,GPOPATH,,ZULU999,"Hello there, I am Zulu Bambulu!",NATIVE_ROLLBACK,TRUE,MINIMUM,FALSE,MYAH_thMin,0,ABORTONERROR,TRUE,NATIVE_OVERWRITE_OLDER,FALSE,PROGRESS,0,NATIVE_OVERRIDE_PERMISSIONS,FALSE,NATIVE_PROGRESS,0,ALLUSERS,TRUE,PERSONALIZED,FALSE,SILENT,FALSE,FXGROUND,BACKGROUND,ABORT,FALSE,IISHOST,localhost,MSIFILE,C:\Users\Peter\AppData\Local\Temp\mia1\111111111111111111111.msi,SFXFILE,,NATIVE_OVERWRITE,PROMPT,MYAH_COMPRESS_INSTALLER_CACHE,FALSE,NEWINSTANCE,FALSE,RECOMMENDEDUPGRADE,FALSE,PRODUCTCODE,{67E0900B-5467-42B7-AEAE-E27B46D44FA1},REBOOTNOW,OK,SFXPATH,,FX,SLIDE,MODIFY,TRUE,USERCOMPANY,,COPYWEBLOCK,,UNINSTALLLINK,C:\ProgramData\{3997EFC8-5CFA-4192-922C-31DBE049DA30}\111111111111111111111.exe,MYAH_LastActiveTick,17198689,MYAH_LastDelegateTick,17198689,MYAHLOGO,,REBOOTCOMPUTER,FALSE,LASTERROR,,NATIVE_ERROR,PROMPT,MYAH_DISABLE_VISTA_RESTART_MANAGER,FALSE,DATADIR,C:\Temp\111111111111111111111\Release\Uncompressed\data\,GLASS,TRUE,DELAYUNTIL_APPLYCHANGES,FALSE,CUSTOM_TASKBAR_PROGRESS_ENABLED,FALSE,SELECTED,0,MYAH_TIMEOUT,10,MYAH_IsCancelled,FALSE,MYAH_thCancelled,FALSE,MYAH_thProgressText,,DATE,11/04/2016,ADVERTISE,FALSE,TITLE,111111111111111111111,CMDLINE,,LICENSE,FALSE,PROGRESSMODE,,OVERRIDECACHE,,NATIVE_ENGINE,FALSE,ENGINECACHE,C:\ProgramData\{3997EFC8-5CFA-4192-922C-31DBE049DA30}\,NATIVE_LOGGING,,SETUPPATH,$EXEDIR$,CUSTOM_TASKBAR_PROGRESS_MAX,100,NATIVE_HARDLINK,TRUE,MYAH_DISABLE_ROLLBACK,FALSE,VERSION,1,RUNAPP,TRUE,SAVEDATA,FALSE,SUPPORTDIR,C:\Users\Peter\AppData\Local\Temp\mia1\,TEMPDIR,C:\Users\Peter\AppData\Local\Temp\,ROOTDIR,C:\Temp\111111111111111111111\Release\Uncompressed\,NATIVE_OVERRIDE_NON_RESTORABLE_PERMISSIONS,FALSE,MYAH_thProgress,0,LOGGED,,CUSTOM_TASKBAR_PROGRESS_PERCENT,0,PROGRESSTEXT,,LANGUAGE,,TIME,21:29:50,NEWLINE,"",FXTIME,1000,USERNAME,Peter,REVISIONCODE,{3997EFC8-5CFA-4192-922C-31DBE049DA30},STARTMENU,111111111111111111111,NATIVE_OLDLOG,,X,01,MYAH_thMax,100,COMPANY,
Look at variable, ZULU999. It contains a comma in the text value and that's where things go the proverbial titsup.
EDIT: If it helps to take this "offline", so to speak, I'd be happy to discuss it further with the bridge's author, Pawel Piotrowski if he'd like to.
