C String Literals
A "string literal" is a sequence of characters from the source character set enclosed in double quotation marks (" "
). String literals are used to represent a sequence of characters, which taken together form a null-terminated string. You must always prefix wide-string literals with the letter L
.
Syntax
string-literal
:
"
s-char-sequence
opt "
L"
s-char-sequence
opt "
s-char-sequence
:
s-char
s-char-sequence
s-char
s-char
:
any member of the source character set except the double quotation mark ("
), backslash (\
), or newline character
escape-sequence
Remarks
This example is a simple string literal:
char *amessage = "This is a string literal.";
All escape codes listed in the Escape Sequences table are valid in string literals. To represent a double quotation mark in a string literal, use the escape sequence \"
. The single quotation mark ('
) can be represented without an escape sequence. The backslash (\
) must be followed with a second backslash (\\
) when it appears within a string. When a backslash appears at the end of a line, it's always interpreted as a line-continuation character.