Question

I’m having trouble generating a file reference in F# from a substring.

I have an input file and I want to create a uniquely identifiable output file from a truncation of the input file name.

My code is as follows:-

    let sillyString = @"BookingsAberdeen.csv";;


    let cutString = sillyString.Substring(8);;

    let outputFile = "@" + cutString;;

    outputFile;;

But it is not coming out quite right. I’m getting “@Aberdeen.csv”, but I need it to be @”Aberdeen.csv”.

Can anyone advise as to the correct code to use for outputFile?

Many thanks,

Simon

EDIT: Removed unneccesary test line from the code.

Answer 1

@ is the verbatim string modifier.

If preceded by the @ symbol, the literal is a verbatim string. This
means that any escape sequences are ignored, except that two quotation
mark characters are interpreted as one quotation mark character. msdn

It stops F# from interpreting e.g. "c:\test.txt" as "c:[TAB]est.txt". Once the string has been interpreted correctly, you don’t need to worry about @-ing it – just remove "@" + from the fourth line.