What does the @ prefix do on string literals in C#
C#.NetStringSyntaxLiteralsC# Problem Overview
I read some C# article to combine a path using Path.Combine
(part1,part2).
It uses the following:
string part1 = @"c:\temp";
string part2 = @"assembly.txt";
May I know what is the use of @
in part1 and part2?
C# Solutions
Solution 1 - C#
@
is not related to any method.
It means that you don't need to escape special characters in the string following to the symbol:
@"c:\temp"
is equal to
"c:\\temp"
Such string is called 'verbatim' or @-quoted. See MSDN.
Solution 2 - C#
As other have said its one way so that you don't need to escape special characters and very useful in specifying file paths.
string s1 =@"C:\MyFolder\Blue.jpg";
One more usage is when you have large strings and want it to be displayed across multiple lines rather than a long one.
string s2 =@"This could be very large string something like a Select query
which you would want to be shown spanning across multiple lines
rather than scrolling to the right and see what it all reads up";
Solution 3 - C#
As stated in C# Language Specification 4.0:
> 2.4.4.5 String literals > > C# supports two forms of string > literals: regular string literals and > verbatim string literals. A regular > string literal consists of zero or > more characters enclosed in double > quotes, as in "hello", and may include > both simple escape sequences (such as > \t for the tab character), and > hexadecimal and Unicode escape > sequences. A verbatim string literal > consists of an @ character followed by > a double-quote character, zero or more > characters, and a closing double-quote > character. A simple example is > @"hello". In a verbatim string > literal, the characters between the > delimiters are interpreted verbatim, > the only exception being a > quote-escape-sequence. In particular, > simple escape sequences, and > hexadecimal and Unicode escape > sequences are not processed in > verbatim string literals.
Solution 4 - C#
It denotes a verbatim string literal, and allows you to use certain characters that normally have special meaning, for example \
, which is normally an escape character, and new lines. For this reason it's very useful when dealing with Windows paths.
Without using @
, the first line of your example would have to be:
string part1 = "c:\\temp";
More information here.
Solution 5 - C#
With @ you dont have to escape special characters.
So you would have to write "c:\\temp" without @
If more presise it is called 'verbatim' strings. You could read here about it:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa691090(v=vs.71).aspx
Solution 6 - C#
The @ just indicates a different way of specifying a string such that you do not have to escape characters with . the only caveat is that double quotes need to be "" to represent a single ".