5

I want to use \ in a string, like

string str="abc\xyz";

But this is giving me error.

I have also tried

string str="abc\\xyz";

But still it isnt working. Can anyone help me out?

Jon Skeet
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Brigadier Jigar
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  • (I agree with all answers, but) what is the result of the second try (which should work) and what were you expecting ? – Timores Mar 12 '10 at 12:09
  • Effectively a duplicate - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1057926/when-to-use-in-c – ChrisF Mar 12 '10 at 12:10
  • That will definitely work - post a snippet if you are still having issues - perhaps it is somewhere other than that particular line. – itsmatt Mar 12 '10 at 12:10
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    Shouldn't the second example just be `string str = "abc\\xyz"` - i.e. just *two* back slashes? Having three gives "unrecognised escape sequence" – ChrisF Mar 12 '10 at 12:11
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    @Timores - the second result shouldn't work; there are three backslashes which results in \\ and \xyz - since \xyz is not valid hex, the compiler will reject it. – Richard Szalay Mar 12 '10 at 12:13
  • @ChrisF: It was originally shown as two, but three in the source. When Finglas edited it to make it show up as a code snippet, it started showing as three. It's hard to say what was in the original code... – Jon Skeet Mar 12 '10 at 12:36
  • @Jon - I did see that, but I was reluctant to change it just in case the three backslashes were somehow in the original code. – ChrisF Mar 12 '10 at 12:55
  • @Richard, sorry, when I looked at the question, there were 2 backslashes in the second try. – Timores Mar 12 '10 at 13:27

8 Answers8

16

You can either escape the character, like so:

string str="abc\\xyz";

or use a verbatim string literal like so:

string str=@"abc\xyz";

So your second example should work.

See here for more information.

Dave Van den Eynde
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5

Well, the latter ("abc\\xyz") will certainly result in a backslash in the string - or you could use a verbatim string literal:

string str = @"abc\xyz";

Note that if you use the debugger to look at your strings, it will often (always?) "escape" them for you, so you'd see "abc\\xyz". This can cause a fair amount of confusion. Either look at the characters individually, or print the string to the console.

You haven't said in what way it "isn't working" - could you give more details? If it's just the debugger output, then the above may be all you're looking for - but otherwise you should tell us what you're seeing vs what you expected to see.

Have a look at my article about strings for more information about strings in general, escaping, the debugger etc.

Jon Skeet
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  • Yes. While debugging i see abc\\xyz when i used @"abc\xyz". – Brigadier Jigar Mar 12 '10 at 12:14
  • And due to this i am unable to do anything further in my code. – Brigadier Jigar Mar 12 '10 at 12:15
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    @Brigadier: But that's the correct data. Why does the debugger showing you the right data but as a verbatim string literal make you "unable to do anything further in [your] code"? What's actually *stopping* you from continuing? What unexpected results are you getting apart from seeing the string in verbatim string literal format? – Jon Skeet Mar 12 '10 at 12:22
  • I am extracting the substring after \ from abc\xyz i.e.i want xyz. But by writing string str=@"abc\xyz" i am getting \xyz. – Brigadier Jigar Mar 12 '10 at 12:56
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    @Brigadier: Then your code to extract the substring is broken. I suspect you're missing a "+1". – Jon Skeet Mar 12 '10 at 13:35
  • string result = str.Substring(str.LastIndexOf("\") + 1); // Incase anybody's wondering... –  May 09 '10 at 07:05
5
string str="abc\\xyz";

Normally, this should work. An alternative is:

string str = @"abc\xyz";
Webleeuw
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2

You can do it like this

string str = @"abc\xyz";
Geoff
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2
string str = @"abc\xyz";
Finglas
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2
public class Program
{
    static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        string str = "abc\\xyz";
        Console.WriteLine(str);
    }
}

This works fine. It prints abc\xyz.

Darin Dimitrov
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1

You can do this:

string str = @"abc\xyz";

That tells says that the slash is significant and not an escape character.

itsmatt
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1

You'll need to prefix the string with the '@' symbol to stop the compiler trying to treat it as an escape sequence. So string str = @"abc\xyz"; should work.

Eight-Bit Guru
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