What does the @ symbol mean in a string declaration?

[brandoom]

What does the @ symbol mean in the following decleration?

string keyName = @"MyKey";

[Rattlerr]

Well assuming your using C# with ASP the @ symbol is a Page Directive...Example:

<%@ Language="C#" AutoEventWireup="true" CodeFile="Default.aspx.cs" Inherits="_Default" %>

their are Several @ Page directive that is used to define the managed language used within the page(via the language attribute).It may also define the name of the related code-behind file (if any),enable tracing support, and so forth..

[David Anton]

It means that it's a verbatim string literal - any escape characters are interpreted literally.
e.g., string test = @"a\b";
results in the backslash being interpreted literally as a backslash and not the usual C# escape character.

The only escape character in verbatim string literals is the double quote - it's used to escape a double quote.

A benefit of verbatim string literals is that you can construct a multi-line string literal easily:
string test = @"this is on the first line
and this is on the second line";

[BramVandenbon]

What does the @ symbol mean in the following decleration?

string keyName = @"MyKey";

No, it's not a page directive at all here.

To understand the reason why the @ is there you should try the following:

Console.Writeline("c:\test");
Console.Writeline(@"c:\test");

You will probably discover the difference very fast.

The thing is that without the @-sign a string can contain certain codes:

\n is new line
\t is a tab
\\ is a \-sign

In C++ there was no such thing like the @-sign. Therefore hardcoded filepaths looked like this.:

string str = "c:\\program files\\someprogram\\somefile.txt";

you could also work like this in C#. But instead of putting every \ twice you can just use the @-sign in front of your string. It saves some time and effort.

string str = @"c:\program files\someprogram\somefile.txt";

I hope this explanation is clear.

[Rattlerr]

Yeah the @ symbol has alot of meanings...Even in the ASP like i mentioned its a Page Directive..Had my head in ASP to long..lol

[brandoom]

Thanks guys. It was in some registry code, so I can see why they were using the @ symbol. The funny thing was that they weren't using any backslashes in the strings. If they would have put one in, I would have figured it out.

Thanks again for chiming in.