C# string with multiple double quotes & "/" slashes

Question

I have a string like this

'Name.ToLower().Contains ("") And Created < ("05/12/2022 01:41:16") And Disabled == false'

How to deal with this in C#?

I've tried prepending with @""" etc.

dotnet fiddle

I believe the multiple quotes thing is a C# 11 preview, so unless you're explicitly using C# 11 for your code, I don't think it will work. — ProgrammingLlama, May 12 '22 at 02:23
I can use c# 11 that no prob's infact i'm doing that right now :) — fuzzybear, May 12 '22 at 02:24
Does this answer your question? [Escape double quotes in a C# string](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26115253/escape-double-quotes-in-a-c-sharp-string) — Charlieface, May 12 '22 at 09:16

Matti Price · Accepted Answer · 2022-05-12T02:30:41.533

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var a = @"'Name.ToLower().Contains ("""") And Created < (""05/12/2022"") And ExpandOnStart == false'";

like this?

edited May 12 '22 at 02:30

answered May 12 '22 at 02:04

Matti Price

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Hi i can't modify the string until it's in a var so have to try and use the string as is ?, thanks – fuzzybear May 12 '22 at 02:12
escaping with \ is bad, it's far less readable. @fuzzybear what you say doesn't make sense. To set it obviously you have to write the string literal in source code, and if you can modify the source code you can modify the string literal – phuclv May 12 '22 at 02:17
@fuzzybear yeah I've got no idea what you are trying to do then. You're going to need to edit your question to be more clear as to what your actual issue is. – Matti Price May 12 '22 at 02:20
Hi, right i've simplified the question – fuzzybear May 12 '22 at 02:24
@fuzzybear updated based on your dotnet fiddle... – Matti Price May 12 '22 at 02:30
Awesome that exactly it, many thanks – fuzzybear May 12 '22 at 02:32

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered May 12 '22 at 02:15

Obviously you have to escape special characters somehow. In older C# use verbatim strings: https://dotnetfiddle.net/8OtiKP

@"'Name.ToLower().Contains ("""") And Created < (""05/12/2022"") And ExpandOnStart == false'"

As you can see, " still needs to be escaped with "", but all the other characters, including \ can be left as-is

In C#11 there's a better solution: raw string literal where there's no need to escape " at all

"""'Name.ToLower().Contains ("") And Created < ("05/12/2022 01:41:16") And Disabled == false'"""

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered May 12 '22 at 02:15

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This is a bit different approach, but you mentioned that the string is created by appending other strings, so possibly it'll help.

var createdDate = "05/12/2022";
var name = "some name";
var expandOnStart = "false";

var theString = $"Name.ToLower().Contains(\"{name}\") And Created < (\"{createdDate}\") And ExpandOnStart == \"{expandOnStart}\"";

// theString = Name.ToLower().Contains("some name") And Created < ("05/12/2022") And ExpandOnStart == "false"

https://dotnetfiddle.net/oq3UYq

answered May 12 '22 at 02:15

DACrosby

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Hi, thanks for that the string is orignally like this 'Name.ToLower().Contains ("") And Created < ("05/12/2022 01:41:16") And Disabled == false' so we need to put that into a var first ideally ? – fuzzybear May 12 '22 at 02:18
Where are you getting the string from? Possibly pasting it into C# directly is not the best solution - e.g. if it's in a csv, might be better to read from the file and programmatically avoid quote escaping when you read the input – DACrosby May 12 '22 at 02:33

C# string with multiple double quotes & "/" slashes

3 Answers3