Using the literal '@' with a string variable

Question

I have a helper class pulling a string from an XML file. That string is a file path (so it has backslashes in it). I need to use that string as it is... How can I use it lik

Answer 1

The @"" just makes it easier to write string literals.

string (C# Reference, MSDN)

Verbatim string literals start with @ and are also enclosed in double quotation marks. For example:

@"good morning" // a string literal

The advantage of verbatim strings is that escape sequences are not processed, which makes it easy to write, for example, a fully qualified file name:

@"c:\Docs\Source\a.txt" // rather than "c:\\Docs\\Source\\a.txt"

One place where I've used it is in a regex pattern:

string pattern = @"\b[DdFf][0-9]+\b";

If you have a string in a variable, you do not need to make a "literal" out of it, since if it is well formed, it already has the correct contents.