underscore in stringnames

Just wondering, why using the underscore in stringnames results in a sysntax error!?
Like "mystring$" is ok, while "my_string$" returns a syntax error. Didn't know that the underscore is treated in a special way that it causes these problems.... So not sure if this actually is a bug or if it is supposed to be this way!?

In Liberty BASIC, the use of an underscore with a variable is reserved for Windows constants. A simple windows constant is VK_ESCAPE which holds the ascii value for the tab key (27). Liberty BASIC expects the Windows constant to be preceded with an underscore as well, so that the output of

Print _VK_ESCAPE

would be

27

Run BASIC doesn't appear to have any Windows constants built in. Print _VK_ESCAPE results in a Compile Error, but it may be that RB follows the same rules as LB: underscores aren't allowed as part of user defined variables. Perhaps you could use a modification?

myString$
MyString$
my.string$

Underscores are not valid in Run BASIC variable names. This is not a bug in the compiler.

-Carl

Just to clear things up, RB and LB5 are sharing the same basic code base, since variable handling is one of the basics, the LB5 syntax takes precedence, this way Carl does not need to change too many things.

That's right. RB is a version of LB. LB has never supported underscores in variable names. Could it? Yes, but I'm not ready to make that decision.

-Carl