How to use \ in a string in C#

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?

8 Answers

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.

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.

string str="abc\\xyz"; 

Normally, this should work. An alternative is:

string str = @"abc\xyz"; 

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

This works fine. It prints abc\xyz.

You can do it like this

string str = @"abc\xyz"; 

string str = @"abc\xyz"; 

You can do this:

string str = @"abc\xyz"; 

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

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.