User guide > Text > Special characters in text

The following characters have special meanings in text:

! rest of the line is comment (ignored by CL)

` (grave) following character to be treated as text

' (quote) start and end of text

" (speech) alternative start and end of text

* (asterisk) end of output line of text

; (semi-colon) end of text for a response (row/column) **

\ (backslash) end of a header (above responses following) ***

^ (carat) overheader (above headers following) ****

| (vertical bar) superheader (above overheaders following) *****

< (less than) start of label control

> (greater than) end of label control

[ (open bracket) start of pre-processor (PP) command

] (close bracket) end of pre-processor (PP) command

_ (underline) start and end of underline sequence

The character | (vertical bar) is not set by CL, but is recommended for use and should be set with format CDS if required.

The * (asterisks) following the above descriptions indicate that the relevant number of consecutive * (asterisks) can be used in place of the special character for compatibility with early versions of CL. See Text delimiters .

Any special character can be used in text by preceding it with the ` (grave) character. Although the grave is not printed, it is counted as a character when checking that texts are not too long.

Text can be surrounded by the single or double quote characters. The same character must be used to start and finish the text. The other one may be used as text.

You may reset formats CDL, CDI, CDH, CDO and CPC to use some of the special characters in text.

Examples of text:

'Here is some text',

"Here is some more text",

"Don't know",

'Category `[one`] and `<two`>',

The grave characters will not print in the last example.