BITS$ function

Purpose | Copy string contents without modification.
Syntax | AnsiVar$ = BITS$(STRING, StringExpr) WideVar$$ = BITS$(WSTRING, StringEXpr)
Remarks | This function copies the exact contents of a string expression to a string variable without making any ANSI/UNICODE conversions. It assumes that the data already matches the format specified by the director word STRING or WSTRING. This functionality will not often be needed, so a certain amount of caution should be used. For example, in older versions of PowerBASIC, there were no WIDE string variables available. It was therefore necessary to store Unicode data in an ANSI byte string. In updating these programs, you may find you need to transfer this WIDE data to a WIDE variable, but without the automatic internal conversion normally provided by the compiler. BITS$ provides just that functionality. Of course, it can copy bytes from WIDE to ANSI as well.
See also | BITS
Example | xyz$ = "Hello" xyz$ = UCODE$(xyz$) widevar$$ = BITS$(WSTRING, xyz$) ' widevar$$ now contains "Hello" in unicode format.