Why assign a string with @?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
What's the @ in front of a string in C#?

This is something I have questioned for a long time but never bothered to figure out. When I download third party libraries I have often seen string assignments using a @ symbol before the string.

string myString = @"Some text";

But there seems to be absolutely no difference if I simply do

string myString = "Some text";

So what is the @ doing?

@michael.mankus well how much "research" did you do then? I remember looking for it when I didn't know what it meant and finding it in seconds... — MarioDS, Sep 13 '12 at 18:35
In all fairness, I did a google search (https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=what+does+the+%40+do+in+c%23) and none of the links on the first page of results even address the issue. I thought it seemed to be a fair enough question. But if you feel the need to downvote, it's okay. And as I said, I am sorry for the duplicate. — Michael Mankus, Sep 13 '12 at 18:41
I didn't downvote you, but I might say that your Google search wasn't well written. The @ in C# can be anything, if you simply add the word "string" the result pops up very quickly. — MarioDS, Sep 13 '12 at 18:43

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 13 '12 at 18:32

7

It is signifies a verbatim string literal and allows you to not have to escape certain characters:

string foo = @"c:\some\path\filename.exe";

vs:

string foo = "c:\\some\\path\\filename.exe";

answered Sep 13 '12 at 18:32

Alex

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score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 13 '12 at 18:32

2

string reason = @"this string literal mea\ns something different with an @ in front than without";

Without the @, the above string would have a new-line character instead of an 'n' in the word "means". With the @, the word "means" looks just like you see it. This feature is especially useful for things like file paths:

string path = @"C:\Users\LookMa\NoDoubleSlashes.txt";

answered Sep 13 '12 at 18:32

Joel Coehoorn

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And what is that difference? That is the question after all? – Servy Sep 13 '12 at 18:32
+1 for answering the question with only self-documenting code. – John Sep 13 '12 at 18:33

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 13 '12 at 18:32

1

It is a verbatim string literal. It lets you do things like @"C:\" instead of "C:\\", and is especially useful in regex and file paths, since these often use backslashes that shouldn't be parsed by the compiler. See the documentation for more info.

answered Sep 13 '12 at 18:32

Tim S.

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 13 '12 at 18:32

0

In this case there is no difference. All '@' does is allow you to omit escape backslashes. If you use '@' and want in include double quotes in the string you need to double up the double quotes.

answered Sep 13 '12 at 18:32

Dave Doknjas

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Why assign a string with @?

4 Answers4