Equal strings not equal?

[Confuzzed]

Please forgive me.  I'm sure I'm doing something stupid, but here is what I am seeing.

This code snippet:

    ;$artist="Deee-Lite"
    ;$artisthold = "Deee-Lite"
    
    $temp = "$artist: " & $artist & " Type:" & VarGetType($artist) & "  Length: " & stringlen($artist) & "  "
    for $k = 1 to stringlen($artist)
        $temp = $temp & string(asc(stringmid($artist,$k,1))) & " "
    next
    logwriteline($temp)
    
    $temp2 = "$arthld: " &  $ArtistHold & " Type:" & VarGetType($artisthold) & "  Length: " & stringlen($artisthold) & "  "
    for $k = 1 to stringlen($ArtistHold)
        $temp2 = $temp2 & string(asc(stringmid($ArtistHold,$k,1))) & " "
    next
    logwriteline($temp2)
    
    if $artist <> $ArtistHold then
        logwriteline("  not equal")
    endif

...

Func LogWriteLine($value)
     FileWriteLine($logfile, $value )
EndFunc

 

Produces this output:

$artist: Deee-Lite Type:String  Length: 9  68 101 101 101 45 76 105 116 101 
$arthld: Deee-Lite Type:String  Length: 9  68 101 101 101 45 76 105 116 101 
  not equal

 

I've no idea why the two strings are not equal.  Can someone help me?

 

(Interestingly, if I un-remark the two assignment lines, it works....)

[Melba23]

Confuzzed,

Welcome to the AutoIt forums.

From where do you get the $artist & $artisthold variables when you run the script without the direct assignment lines?

M23

 

[JohnOne]

Because "$arthld:" is not equal to "$artist:"

[Confuzzed]

Confuzzed,

Welcome to the AutoIt forums.

From where do you get the $artist & $artisthold variables when you run the script without the direct assignment lines?

M23

 

Artist is assigned:  $artist:

$Array3 = StringRegExp($line2, '  Artist +(.+)', 3)
            if @error <> 1 then
                $artist = $Array3[0]
                continueloop ;handle multiple tags
            endif

Artisthold is returned from a function.  $artisthold:

$ArtistHold = ArtistFromRelease($releaseid)

...

Func ArtistFromRelease($Release2)

...

    $ArtistRead = ""

...
            $Array6 = StringRegExp($line6, 'Release by(?:.+?)<bdi>(.+?)<\/bdi>', 3)
            if @error <> 1 then
                $ArtistRead = $array6[0]
                exitloop
            endif

...

    Return $ArtistRead
    
EndFunc

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Edited July 27, 2015 by Confuzzed

[Melba23]

Confuzzed,

And from where do you get $line2 & $line6? Help us to help you - we do not have any idea of what your script does or how you get the values.

M23

[Confuzzed]

Because "$arthld:" is not equal to "$artist:"

Thank you for your help.  I'm sure you are right, but as far as I can tell, $artist and $artisthold are exactly the same.  Below is the output where I display the variable contents, type and length.  Then I walk both variables one character at a time and display the ascii codes.

$artist: Deee-Lite Type:String  Length: 9  68 101 101 101 45 76 105 116 101 
$arthld: Deee-Lite Type:String  Length: 9  68 101 101 101 45 76 105 116 101

The problem does not seem to be fundamental.  Most of the time the program works fine, except for this example.

[Confuzzed]

Confuzzed,

And from where do you get $line2 & $line6? Help us to help you - we do not have any idea of what your script does or how you get the values.

M23

Sorry.  I was hoping to find some way to see why the two variables are not equal...

 

Here are the contents of those two variables:

$Line2:

Artist                             Deee-Lite

 

 

$Line6: 

Release by <a href="https://url/artist/83d401e8-3322-4491-98d3-ec3a567c5047" title="Deee‐Lite"><bdi>Deee‐Lite</bdi></a>

 

[trancexx]

Use AscW() instead of Asc() to see the difference.

[Melba23]

Confuzzed,

This is like drawing teeth. One last try: what is the original source of these strings?

As the code indicates that the strings are identical when you assign them directly, it follows that they are not when you derive them within your script. So from where do you get the basic data from which you extract the strings you compare? Is it from an mp3 tag? Some form of music database? Or somewhere else?

M23

[Confuzzed]

 

Use AscW() instead of Asc() to see the difference.

Thank you!  That did it.  Here is the output now:

$artist: Deee-Lite Type:String  Length: 9  68 101 101 101 45 76 105 116 101 
$arthld: Deee-Lite Type:String  Length: 9  68 101 101 101 8208 76 105 116 101 
  not equal

 

[Confuzzed]

Confuzzed,

This is like drawing teeth. One last try: what is the original source of these strings?

As the code indicates that the strings are identical when you assign them directly, it follows that they are not when you derive them within your script. So from where do you get the basic data from which you extract the strings you compare? Is it from an mp3 tag? Some form of music database? Or somewhere else?

M23

Sorry. The program is long, and I was hoping to simply focus on the contents of the two variables, rather than from where their contents was assigned.

 

fwiw, line2 came from m4a tags and line6 came from a downloaded web page...

[TheSaint]

I was gonna say that perhaps the dash is the culprit, as I've come across this before with music names. Obviously you can have ASC variants of a dash.

[Confuzzed]

I was gonna say that perhaps the dash is the culprit, as I've come across this before with music names. Obviously you can have ASC variants of a dash.

Yep I wondered about the dash also, and when I examined the file manually, my editor formatted the unicode.   I just couldn't see what was happening with ASC, (and just imagine my frustration with the ASC output.)

[TheSaint]

That's why I have all non standard ASC 2 characters replaced with standard, by default in many of my programs, including foreign accents etc. In my world, there is only one lower case 'a' and 'e' etc.

People have all sorts of things in ID3 Tags, so I just rewrite the lot.

Edited July 28, 2015 by TheSaint