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C# Raw String

Summary: in this tutorial, you’ll learn about C# raw string literals that have been introduced in C# 11.

Introduction to the C# raw strings

C# string literals require escaping of special characters and delimiters. Therefore, it’s difficult to construct literal strings specially for regexes as well as XML and JSON. For example:

var path = "C:\temp\no.txt";

Console.WriteLine(path);Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

In this example, the \t means tab and \n means new line. It outputs the following to the console:

C:      emp
o.txtCode language: CSS (css)

To fix it, you need to use a verbatim string by prefixing the string with the @ character:

var path = @"C:\temp\no.txt";

Console.WriteLine(path);Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Also, if a string contains quotes ", you need to escape it using the \ characters. For example:

var response = "{ \"name\": \"John Doe\"}";
Console.WriteLine(response);Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

The string becomes difficult to read.

C# 11 introduced raw string to overcome the problems. A raw string uses a flexible start and end delimiter to avoid conflict with the contents of the string.

A raw string starts with a minimum of three quotes """ and is optionally followed by a new line, the content of the string, and ends with the same number of quotes.

For example:

var json = """{ "name": "John Doe"}""";
Console.WriteLine(json);Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Output:

{ "name": "John Doe"}Code language: JSON / JSON with Comments (json)

If the string itself may use three quotes then the raw string can have longer starting/ending delimiters, which are four quotes like this:

var s = """" C# raw string uses a minimum of """  """";
Console.WriteLine(s);Code language: PHP (php)

Output:

C# raw string uses a minimum of """Code language: PHP (php)

Multi-line raw string literals

C# raw string literals support multiline strings. For example:

var json = """
    { 
        "name": "John Doe",
        "address": {
            "home": "4000 N. 1st street",
            "work": "101 N. 1st street"
        }
    }
    """;
Console.WriteLine(json);Code language: PHP (php)

Output:

{
    "name": "John Doe",
    "address": {
        "home": "4000 N. 1st street",
        "work": "101 N. 1st street"
    }
}Code language: JSON / JSON with Comments (json)

The multi-line raw string literals follow these rules:

  • The opening and closing quotes of a multi-line raw string literal must be on separate lines.
  • Any whitespace following the opening quote on the same line is ignored.
  • Whitespace-only lines following the opening quotes are included in the string literal.
  • Any whitespace to the left of the closing quotes is removed from all lines of the raw string literal.