9.6: Escape Sequences
- Page ID
- 15212
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It is possible to display multiple lines of output in just one line of code. You just have to tell Java where to put the line breaks.
public class Hello {
public static void main(String[] args) {
System.out.print("Hello!\nHow are you doing?\n");
}
}
The output is two lines, each ending with a newline character:
Hello! How are you doing?
The \n is an escape sequence, which is a sequence of characters that represents a special character. The backslash allows you to “escape” the string’s literal interpretation. Notice there is no space between \n and How. If you add a space there, there will be a space at the beginning of the second line.
| \n | newline |
| \t | tab |
| \" | double quote |
| \\ | backslash |
Another common use of escape sequences is to have quotation marks inside of strings. Since double quotes indicate the beginning and end of strings, you need to escape them with a backslash.
System.out.println("She said \"Hello!\" to me.");
The result is:
She said "Hello!" to me.