Multiline string literal in C#

Question

Is there an easy way to create a multiline string literal in C#?

Here\'s what I have now:

string query = \"SELECT foo, bar\"
+ \" FROM table\"
+ \" W         


        

Answer 1

The problem with using string literal I find is that it can make your code look a bit "weird" because in order to not get spaces in the string itself, it has to be completely left aligned:

    var someString = @"The
quick
brown
fox...";

Yuck.

So the solution I like to use, which keeps everything nicely aligned with the rest of your code is:

var someString = String.Join(
    Environment.NewLine,
    "The",
    "quick",
    "brown",
    "fox...");

And of course, if you just want to logically split up lines of an SQL statement like you are and don't actually need a new line, you can always just substitute Environment.NewLine for " ".

Answer 2

You can use @ and "".

        string sourse = @"{
        ""items"":[
        {
            ""itemId"":0,
            ""name"":""item0""
        },
        {
            ""itemId"":1,
            ""name"":""item1""
        }
        ]
    }";

Answer 3

One other gotcha to watch for is the use of string literals in string.Format. In that case you need to escape curly braces/brackets '{' and '}'.

// this would give a format exception
string.Format(@"<script> function test(x) 
      { return x * {0} } </script>", aMagicValue)
// this contrived example would work
string.Format(@"<script> function test(x) 
      {{ return x * {0} }} </script>", aMagicValue)

Answer 4

Add multiple lines : use @

string query = @"SELECT foo, bar
FROM table
WHERE id = 42";

Add String Values to the middle : use $

string text ="beer";
string query = $"SELECT foo {text} bar ";

Multiple line string Add Values to the middle: use $@

string text ="Customer";
string query = $@"SELECT foo, bar
FROM {text}Table
WHERE id = 42";

Answer 5

You can use the @ symbol in front of a string to form a verbatim string literal:

string query = @"SELECT foo, bar
FROM table
WHERE id = 42";

You also do not have to escape special characters when you use this method, except for double quotes as shown in Jon Skeet's answer.

Answer 6

I haven't seen this, so I will post it here (if you are interested in passing a string you can do this as well.) The idea is that you can break the string up on multiple lines and add your own content (also on multiple lines) in any way you wish. Here "tableName" can be passed into the string.

    private string createTableQuery = "";

    void createTable(string tableName)
    {

         createTableQuery = @"CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS
                ["+ tableName  + @"] (
               [ID] INTEGER NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT, 
               [Key] NVARCHAR(2048)  NULL, 
               [Value] VARCHAR(2048)  NULL
                                )";
    }