Failed to search a character using CString::Find

Question

Failed to search a character using CString::Find

Avinash Bansod 21

Hi,

I want to find if the character ':' is present in a Chinese string "1.00 单位：14.30 单位".

But it is returning me -1 all the time though the character ':' is present in the above string.

CString myString = _T( "1.00 单位：14.30 单位");
int index = myString.Find(':');

Here I am expecting the 'index' value to be 7 but getting as -1.

Thanks in advance for any suggestion or help.

Igor Tandetnik 1,116 Reputation points

2022-12-07T15:13:51.307+00:00

The character in your string that resembles a colon is not U+003A Colon, but rather U+FF1A Fullwidth Colon. But what you pass to Find is a plain ASCII colon, U+003A

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Igor Tandetnik 1,116 Reputation points

2022-12-07T15:13:51.307+00:00

The character in your string that resembles a colon is not U+003A Colon, but rather U+FF1A Fullwidth Colon. But what you pass to Find is a plain ASCII colon, U+003A

Answer 1

David Lowndes 4,726

Your character isn't a ':', it's '：'

Try:
int index = myString.Find( _T('：') );

RLWA32 51,536 Reputation points

2022-12-06T11:56:01.063+00:00

As @David Lowndes points out, take a look at the following images -

Memory panes show the content of the str1 and str2 objects

Local variables during debugging
Avinash Bansod 21 Reputation points

2022-12-08T09:07:42.787+00:00

Thanks @David Lowndes & @RLWA32 for your replies.

Here my understanding is this difference there in ':' character is due to the conversion from ASCII to UNICODE in foreign languages (other than English language). Because when my application is in English language the CString::Find(_T(':')) works fine for the string "1.00 Unit : 14.30 Units" but when I switch application language to Chinese then the string becomes "1.00 单位：14.30 单位" and I do not get the desired result for CString::Find(_T(':'))
David Lowndes 4,726 Reputation points

2022-12-08T09:34:40.577+00:00

I don't think it would be due to any ANSI->Unicode conversion. More likely the method of inputting the string is different and resulting in you getting the alternative character colon.
RLWA32 51,536 Reputation points

2022-12-08T10:55:27.7+00:00

I believe your question about the results of calling CString::Find has been answered. If you want to pursue the reason why the full width colon appears in the Unicode string then I suggest you ask a new question and provide pertinent information.
Viorel 125.8K Reputation points

2022-12-08T12:10:50.173+00:00

I think that it is possible to convert ("normalize") the special characters like '：' to normal ':'. Then you can use Find(':'). However, the easier solution is trying both of Find('：') and Find(':').

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Failed to search a character using CString::Find

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