Escaping the $ character in snippets

Question

I find myself doing a ton of jQuery these days, so I started to abstract out some of the common things I do into snippets. I look forward to sharing these with the community, but I'm running into an issue right now.

The literals in snippets are defined by adding dollar signs ($) around the name of the literal to delimit where the value you would like to provide will go. This is difficult because jQuery uses the dollar sign notation in order to use a lot of its functionality.

What is the escape sequence for snippets, so I am able to use the dollar sign, and have my snippets still function?

Watchword

More of a side note, but don't forget you can use jQuery instead of $ – Cannell

Note: This question is about Visual Studio, not Visual Studio Code; however, this particular answer is about the latter. – Fount

use $$item instead of $item – Phylogeny

Answer 1

To have a literal $ try doubling it: $$

Colostomy

@JosephMorgan It worked for me in C# (VS2015 for reference). – Disagreeable

This approach still keep the cursor jumping to this position when tab is used. With this answer I could escape correctly. – Rabbinism

@Rabbinism it seems the answer you linked to emphasizes VSC (Visual Studio Code perhaps), so things may have changed between Visual Studio versions. – Colostomy

@AhmadMageed my bad. upvoting ;) – Rabbinism

Worked for me also! VS2015 – Slavin

Works in VS2017, C# – Thickleaf

Dear downvoters: this question and answer is old. It may not work in today's latest version. Rather than downvote, just upvote another answer that works with VSC or whatever version you're on. – Colostomy

Works for me in C#, VS2017. – Clarey

Works in VS2019, C# – Off

It works but it's not ideal, the next solution should be the approved one to escape "\\$" – Weightlessness

Wow man searching for this for so long to escape this inside CDATA in XML and also for code snippet in Visual studio – Circumnutate

Still works in VS 2022 – Defeatism

Answer 2

This is the right way for Visual Studio Code: \\$.

This makes the $ a literal part of the snippet rather than the start of a $-prefixed construct.

Velma

This doesn't mess up the tabbing in VSC. IE if you use the $$ approach VSC assumes that you want to do something in those positions. – Nutria

This should be the accepted answer. The currently accepted answer messes up when tabbing between $variables. – Lcm

@hunt: This is the right answer for Visual Studio Code, whereas the question and the accepted answer are about Visual Studio. – Fount

Still holds up in late 2021. – Francisfrancisca

This answer is for Visual Studio Code, but the question is about Visual Studio. (Thanks Microsoft for creating that confusion.) – Wholewheat

Answer 3

There is an "Delimiter" attribute defined for a Code element. This defaults to $ but you can set it to a different character like ~ or so.

<Snippet>
<Code Language="JavaScript" Delimiter="~"><![CDATA[(function ($) {
    $(document).ready(function () {

    });
})(jQuery);]]></Code>
</Snippet>

Bob

Not sure why this is not the accepted answer. Delimiter is attribute that specifies the delimiter used to describe literals and objects in the code and its exact purpose is to replace the $ if needed.<Code Language="csharp" Delimiter="!"><![CDATA[Log.Debug(message: $"!end!");]]></Code> – Hollyanne

Answer 4

Although the jQuery response is valid, it's a nicer syntax to use the $ notation.

I've found an answer: Making the $ character a literal with a default value of $.

<Literal Editable="true">

<ID>dollar</ID> <ToolTip>replace the dollar sign character</ToolTip> <Default>$</Default> <Function> </Function> </Literal>

Watchword

I found that this works in C# for using the "$" for a Formattable string type. – Lunation

I wasn't sure if adding an example was a comment or an answer, so because of length I added it below. It is based on this answer. – Lunation

Answer 5

I used this for a formattable string in C#. I used the example above from cory-fowler verbatim:

<Literal Editable="true">
    <ID>dollar</ID>
    <ToolTip>Replace the dollar sign character</ToolTip>
    <Default>$</Default>
    <Function></Function>
</Literal>

Usage (line breaks are added for clarity on Stack Overflow, not in the original.):

    string errMessage = $dollar$"Error occurred in
       {MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().Module}, in procedure
       {MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().Name}: {ex.Message}".ToString();

Thanks, cory-fowler!

Lunation

Answer 6

I found the above cory-fowler answer useful, but was frustrated that the literal $ was pre-selected when executing a C# snippet in VS 2019...

It was also ignoring my $end$ keyword...

<![CDATA[string Literal_edit_true = $dollar$"$end$";]]>

Simply changing to Editable=false resolved the issue and now the cursor appears at $end$ ready to type...

<Snippet>
    <Code Language="CSharp">
        <![CDATA[string Literal_edit_false = $dollar$"$end$";]]>
    </Code>
    <Declarations>
        <Literal Editable="false">
            <ID>dollar</ID>
            <ToolTip>Replace the dollar sign character</ToolTip>
            <Default>$</Default>
            <Function></Function>
        </Literal>
    </Declarations>
</Snippet>

Parishioner