I couldn't get this to repro in VS2003 for either VB or C#.

However, if you look at the help for CustomActionData, there is some
guidance regarding directories, since they use \'s as well...  You might
also try switching to using forward slashes or -'s...

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David Guyer - VBQA Deployment Testing
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
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In the CustomActionData property in the properties window of custom action
in a merge module's custom actions editor, enter a string like
/bcpSwitches="-t \"<row*end>\n\"".

The string retrieved via Context.Parameters["bcpSwitches"] is "-t
\"<row*end>\\n\"".

Note that the backslash double quote entered in the properties window is
correctly quoted and yields an embedded double quote in the custom action.  
However the backslash 'n' entered in the properties window is not.  In that
case, the backslash itself is quoted rather than the 'n'.  Further testing
shows that a backslash can also quote itself - "\\" yields "\\".

So if I want a user of my merge module to be able to enter newlines or tabs
in CustomActionData values, I would have to parse the parameter value and
replace "\\n" or "\\t" with "\n" or "\t".  But what if a user really wants
to enter "\\n" or "\\t"?  My translation hack will erroneously yield "\n"
or "\t".

IOW, the current behavior loses information.  "\n\\n" is translated by the
properties window GUI into "\\n\\n", thereby stumping any attempt in the
custom action to distinguish between the 2 cases.

It seems like the properties window GUI should really work something like
one of the 2 following ways:

1) The GUI figures out which language the custom action is implemented in,
then uses that language's quoting rules, or

2) The GUI uses language-independent quoting rules, which are then
translated into a string properly quoted in the custom action's language.

David