Unrecognized escape sequence for path string containing backslashes

Question

The following code generates a compiler error about an "unrecognized escape sequence" for each backslash:

string foo = "D:\Projects\Some\Kind\Of\Pathproblem\wuhoo.xml";

I guess I need to escape backslash? How do I do that?

score 245 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 19 '09 at 22:02

245

You can either use a double backslash each time

string foo = "D:\\Projects\\Some\\Kind\\Of\\Pathproblem\\wuhoo.xml";

or use the @ symbol

string foo = @"D:\Projects\Some\Kind\Of\Pathproblem\wuhoo.xml";

answered Aug 19 '09 at 22:02

Brandon

This also helped to resolve an Html.TextBoxFor issue that I was having. Using the @ before the regular expression resolved the Unrecognized escape sequence, where the double backslash failed. – Joshua Feb 27 '17 at 20:37

score 31 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 14 '15 at 21:43

31

Try this:

string foo = @"D:\Projects\Some\Kind\Of\Pathproblem\wuhoo.xml";

The problem is that in a string, a \ is an escape character. By using the @ sign you tell the compiler to ignore the escape characters.

You can also get by with escaping the \:

string foo = "D:\\Projects\\Some\\Kind\\Of\\Pathproblem\\wuhoo.xml";

edited Jul 14 '15 at 21:43

Peter Mortensen

answered Aug 19 '09 at 22:02

Josh

4

FWIW and to help Googlebot, the term for @"" is a "verbatim string literal". Though I've also heard it referred to as just "string literal", that technically includes the "regular string literal" of just "". http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa691090(VS.71).aspx – Mark Brackett Aug 19 '09 at 22:07

score 14 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 19 '09 at 22:01

14

var foo = @"D:\Projects\Some\Kind\Of\Pathproblem\wuhoo.xml";

answered Aug 19 '09 at 22:01

Piotr Czapla

score 12 · Answer 4 · edited Jul 14 '15 at 21:44

12

If your string is a file path, as in your example, you can also use Unix style file paths:

string foo = "D:/Projects/Some/Kind/Of/Pathproblem/wuhoo.xml";

But the other answers have the more general solutions to string escaping in C#.

edited Jul 14 '15 at 21:44

Peter Mortensen

answered Aug 19 '09 at 22:07

Scott Weinstein

score 5 · Answer 5 · answered Aug 19 '09 at 22:04

5

string foo = "D:\\Projects\\Some\\Kind\\Of\\Pathproblem\\wuhoo.xml";

This will work, or the previous examples will, too. @"..." means treat everything between the quote marks literally, so you can do

@"Hello
world"

To include a literal newline. I'm more old school and prefer to escape "\" with "\\"

answered Aug 19 '09 at 22:04

Bob Kaufman

5 Answers5