String Special Cases

There are some special cases for creating literal strings. For instance you might want quotes as characters inside your string. In this case you need special symbolism using a character escape code, starting with \ backslash. Then the character after the backslash has a special meaning.

For instance a quote character after a backslash, \", does not mean the end of a string literal. It means a quote character is literally used in the string: "He said, \"Hello!\", over and over."

We can illustrate with csharp, first with a simple string:

csharp> Console.WriteLine("Hello world!");
Hello world!
csharp> Console.WriteLine("He said, \"Hello!\", over and over.");
He said, "Hello!", over and over.

There are many other special cases of escape code. The main ones you are likely to use are:

Escape code	Meaning
`\"`	`"` (quote)
`\'`	`'` ( single quote in char literal)
`\\`	`\` (backslash)
`\n`	newline

Hence if you really want a backslash character in a literal, you need to write two of them.

The newline character indicates further text will appear on the next line down when printed with the Console.WriteLine function.

Example:

csharp> Console.WriteLine("Windows path: c:\\Users\\aharrin");
Windows path: c:\Users\aharrin
csharp> Console.WriteLine("a\nbc\n\ndef")
a
bc

def

Literal strings that are simply delimited by quotes " must start and end on the same line. There is also a notation for @-quoting, with an at-sign @ before the first quote. In an @-quoted string, all characters are treated verbatim, including all backslashes. Also the string may go on for several lines, and all newlines are included literally. (The csharp program does not recognize multi-line @-quoted strings.) This fragment in a program would produce the same output as the statements in the csharp example above:

       Console.WriteLine(@"Windows path: c:\Users\aharrin");
       Console.WriteLine(@"a
bc

def");

The only thing this example does not show off well is the amount of left margin indentation. That is significant in a multiline @-quoted string. A whole simple program with this code is in example at_sign_strings/at_sign_strings.cs.

Caution: When you give csharp an expression evaluating to a string at the prompt, you get back a verbatim string with quotes added around it, but no @ to remind you that it is verbatim:

csharp> "Windows path: c:\\Users\\aharrin"
"Windows path: c:\Users\aharrin"
csharp> "a\nbc\n\ndef"
"a
bc

def"

Multiline String Exercise

Write a statement that initializes a string s with a single string literal that, when printed, shows something on one line then three empty lines, and then a final line with text.
Declare the same string with a different string literal expression, that produces the same string. (Just one of your literals should start with @.)