Escape Characters

Sometimes you want to output something that cannot simply be typed as-is — for example a line break in the middle of a sentence, or a quotation mark. For this, C# has "escape characters": a backslash (\) followed by a letter that carries a special meaning.

Console.WriteLine("First line\nSecond line");

// Output:
// First line
// Second line

The escape character ____ produces a line break in the middle of a piece of text.

The escape character \t produces a tab — a larger, even amount of spacing. This lets you roughly line up text into columns.

Console.WriteLine("Name:\tMax");
Console.WriteLine("Age:\t17");

// Output:
// Name:   Max
// Age:    17

What is the escape character \t used for?

If you try to place a regular quotation mark in the middle of a piece of text, there is a problem: C# would think the string ends right there. The fix is \" — an "escaped" quotation mark that is treated as plain text instead of the end of the string.

Console.WriteLine("She said: \"C# is awesome!\"");

// Output:
// She said: "C# is awesome!"

And what if you actually want to output a backslash itself — for example in a file path? Since a single backslash normally starts an escape character, you have to double it: \\.

Console.WriteLine("The path is: C:\\Projects\\CSharp");

// Output:
// The path is: C:\Projects\CSharp

To output a single backslash, you must write \\ in the code rather than just \.