NUL char cannot be part of a string?

[gdelconti]

See example below:

print "ESP Basic 3.0.Alpha 69"

' let define some control character
let NUL = chr(0) 'required
let SOH = chr(1) 'can be any
let STX = chr(2) 'can be any

print "correct with any combitation of control char but the NUL"
let s = SOH & STX
print asc(left(s,1))
print asc(right(s,1))

print "wrong if NUL is part of the string"
let s = NUL & STX
print asc(left(s,1))
print asc(right(s,1))

[oldbodd]

Espbasic is a program written in a programming language created by people who thought it was a good idea to indicate the end of a string with a special character and picked chr(0) for that character. So when you put a chr(0) in a string, the program reads the string till it comes to that Chr(0) and treats it as end of string rather than a character with a value of 0 .. if you see what I mean.... I'm sure this has many advantages but strongly suspect that the phrase buffer overrun is not entirely unrelated to this type of thinking.... Some systems use two bytes to represent one....

[gdelconti]

I thought this was "C"-related.
BTW, other people from different country in more recent times thought that using NUL char in Relay deactivation command was a good idea too ;-) http://www.smoke.com.au/museum/?p=379

Of course with ESPbasic there is an obvious workaround:

[R1OFF]
' A0 and A1 defined elsewhere
serialprint chr(A0)
serialprint chr(01)
serialprint chr(00)
serialprint chr(A1)
return