BUG: Match Brace Command Foiled by String/Character Literals

ID: Q166946

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Visual Studio versions 97, 6.0
Microsoft Visual C++, 32-bit Editions, versions 5.0, 6.0
Microsoft Visual J++, versions 1.1, 6.0
Microsoft Visual InterDev, versions 1.0, 6.0

SYMPTOMS

The matching brace feature of the Text Editor (the GoToMatchBrace and GoToMatchBraceExtend commands) fails if code contains curly braces ({}), square brackets ([]), angle brackets (<>), or parentheses as literals. For example:


   void test()
   {
     TCHAR szBar[] = _T("{");
     TCHAR chBar = _T('{');
   }

If you position the caret before the first brace and then execute the GoToMatchBrace command, nothing happens.

CAUSE

The editor keeps a count of the brace (or other character) it is trying to match as it scans the code. It does not recognize language tokens, so it cannot skip strings.

RESOLUTION

You can work around this by coding the brace (or other character) using an octal or hex escape sequence, instead of a literal. For example:

"{"

could be written:


   "\x7B"

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a bug in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. We are researching this bug and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

Additional query words:


Keywords          : kbide kbVC kbVC500bug kbVC600bug kbVisID100bug kbVisID600bug kbVJ110bug kbVJ600bug kbVS97bug kbVS600bug kbGrpDSTools 
Version           : WINDOWS:1.0,1.1,6.0,97; winnt:5.0,6.0
Platform          : WINDOWS winnt 
Issue type        : kbbug

Last Reviewed: April 17, 1999