escape sequences

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <1991Jan26.080726.21670 at nntp-server.caltech.edu> fjs at nntp-server.caltech.edu (Fernando J. Selman) writes:
>Is there a way to conver the string (e.g.) "\a" to
>the constant '\a' at run time, without writing my
>own lookup table?

Judging from the "Subject:" line, what you are actually after is a
way to convert a string such as "\\a" to the character '\a'.  Since
this amounts to a part of the normal job of compilation, but you
want instead to defer the action to run time, the answer is that
there is no simple way to do this.  Use of a lookup table is
probably the easiest method.