Is it possible for a dictionary key to contain text with tabs?
Tabs are replaced with spaces, as is the %Tab% token, and \t is treated as a literal "\t"
My goal is for the text value of a given key to include tabs when retrieved using the %Dictionary% token. I supposed I could use a random character in place of a tab and then replace it after getting the key's value, but is it possible for the key itself to retain tabs within text?
I see what happened.
At some point in my testing, I mistakenly started using an HTML prompt to display the values instead of a display text action. So the tabs were ignored in HTML.
I was also using your Variable Inspector Prompt because it's so handy for quickly changing dictionary key values. I would paste text containing a tab into a Value field in VIP, and as soon as I would leave the field, it would update and the tab would look like a space:
Going back now and looking at the JSON, I can see the tabs are stored as \t
and show up just fine in the display text action.
In short, it was an HTML thing and user error.
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That's funny, because before I posted my response, I did pretty-much exactly what you did. I used VIP to show the value, and no tab (I don't think, anyway). So instead of using VIP to check the value, I used KM to copy the dictionary value to the clipboard, and pasted it in to BBEdit. When I turned on "Show Invisibles", I saw the tab.
The only reason I was that diligent was because I couldn't imagine a scenario where Peter would have not stored the string just as it was given to the dictionary.
In any case, it's funny we went through similar steps!
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I had another thought. In VIP, when looking at the dictionary, click the button to show it as JSON. You'll see the tab there. I guess you learn something every day, even if you wrote the code!
That's what I did here:
I have gotten a lot of mileage out of that tool. Thanks, Dan!
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