primitive char and unicode value assignments

[Abimaran Kugathasan]

class CheckUnicode	{
	public static void main(String[] args)	{
		char c = '\u000A'; // Invalid
		System.out.println(c);
                char d = '\u000a'; // Invalid
                char e = '\u000B';
	}
}

What is wrong here? I couldn't find out it! Thanks Advanced!

[Devaka Cooray]

The character \u000A is something similar to a new line. In other words, your code gives a compile time error because of the same reason of why the following code is wrong:

 public static void main(String[] args)  {  
        char c = '
         ';
        System.out.println(c);  
                char d = '
                 ';
                char e = '\u000B';  
    }

[Kamil Wojcik]

Abimaran, You can try also something like this

 public class AQuestion1 {

	/**
	 * @param args
	 */
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		//char c = '\u000A{System.out.println("Hello");}
	}

}   

[Abimaran Kugathasan]

Kamil Wojcik wrote:Abimaran, You can try also something like this

 public class AQuestion1 {

	/**
	 * @param args
	 */
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		//char c = '\u000A{System.out.println("Hello");}
	}

}   

I couldn't understand this! Thanks Devaka Cooray

[Devaka Cooray]

Abimaran Kugathasan wrote:I couldn't understand this!

Have a look at the commented line. Since \u000A represents a new line, it is equivalent to the following:

public static void main(String[] args) {  
       //char c = '\u000A
       {System.out.println("Hello");}  
} 

Now, the second statement is not commented and thus it gets executed.

[Jesper de Jong]

The thing to be aware about here is that Unicode escapes such as \u000a are processed as the very first step in the compiler, before the compiler really looks at your code. The Unicode-escaped codes are replaced by their real characters, and \u000a is ofcourse a newline character.

Because of how this works, you cannot use Unicode escapes as a general way to include special characters in your source code (that's not what they are meant for).