2.5.3.1. The structure of the string table

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The string table contains all string contansts that are used in the program. This includes the single and multi line strings as well as symbols. (note that even the variable name after the keyword next is ignored but stored in the string table).

The strings in the string table are stored one after the other zero character terminated. Older version of ScriptBasic v1.0b21 and before stored string constants zero character terminated. Because of this string constants containing zero character were truncated (note that \000 creates a zero character in a string constant in ScriptBasic).

The version v1.0b22 changed the way string constants are stored and the way string table contains the strings. Each string is stored with its length. The length is stored as a long on sizeof(long) bytes. This is followed by the string. Whenever the code refers to a string the byte offset of the first character of the string is stored in the built code. For example the very first string starts on the 4. byte on 32 bit machines.

Altough the string length and zero terminating characters are redundant information both are stored to avoid higher level mistakes causing problem.


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