C# 5.0 Programmer's Reference

72 ❘ CHAPTER 4 Data Types, Variables, and Constants
For example, the following code defines a string that contains four column headers’ values separated
by tabs.
string header = "Item\tPrice Each\tQuantity\tTotal";
If a string contains backslashes but no escape sequences, it can be cumbersome to represent
each backslash with \\. For example, Windows file paths such as C:\Temp\Projects\CurrentWork\
project.txt may include a lot of backslashes. The following code shows how you would assign this
value to a string variable.
string filename = "C:\\Temp\\Projects\\CurrentWork\\project.txt";
In C# you can place an @ symbol in front of a string to make working with this kind of text easier.
In that case the string ignores all escape sequences and includes the characters between its quotes as
they appear.
string filename = @"C:\Temp\Projects\CurrentWork\project.txt";
This kind of string continues until it reaches its closing " and can even span multiple lines.
If you need the string to contain a " character, you can’t simply type it in the text because the program
would think it represented the end of the string. You also cannot use \" because this kind of
string ignores escape sequences.
Instead of adding a " character to the string, double up the character. The following code initializes
a string variable to hold a two-line string that contains double quotes and then displays it in the
Console window.
string greeting = @"Welcome to Project
""Do What I Meant""";
Console.WriteLine(greeting);
The following text shows the result.
Welcome to Project
"Do What I Meant"
Data Type Conversion
Normally, you assign a value to a variable that has the same data type as the value. For example,
you assign a string value to a string variable, you assign an integer value to an int variable, and so
forth. Often, however, a program must convert a value from one data type to another. For example,
it might need to convert an int into a float or it might need to convert a string containing a
numeric value into a decimal.
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