what is java's string continuation character?

[Tyler Durden]

I'm trying to nicely format a long java string (to fit in an 80 char editor window).

In C, I can use a backslash (\), to do something like:

char *longstring = "first line second line";

Does java have the equivalent? I get a compile error when I try:

static final String longstring = "first line second line";

Thanks in advance.

[John Poff]

Hi,

Have you tried this:

char *longstring = "first line second line";


JP

[Tyler Durden]

Drats, this stupid Forums UI is replacing the backslashes with a blank space (and ignoring newlines), so my original post (and John's suggestion) were garbled.

==> Let's use "B" to represent a backslash char and "N" to represent newline char...

What I tried was:

static final String longstring = "first line BN second line";

and that gave me a javac compile error.

Any suggestions? (Please use "B" and "N" so your suggestion doesn't get Forum-mangled)...

Thanks again.

[John Poff · Accepted solution]

Ok. Maybe you can concatenate them and do the line continuation character. Something like this:

char *longstring = "first line" + BN
"second line";


Give that a try.

JP

[Michael Armbrecht]

Hi Tyler,

Make your string declaration look like this:

static final String longstring = ("first line "
+ "second line"
+ "third line");

Basically, use the "+" operator to concatenate part strings. Every part string can be on a separate line.