You escape braces in a C# interpolated string by doubling them. So, { becomes {{ and } becomes }}.
Here’s a breakdown and examples:
Why you need to escape them:
Interpolated strings use curly braces {} to denote the placeholders for the expressions you want to embed within the string. Therefore, if you want the literal curly brace character to appear in the string itself, you need to tell C# to treat it as a literal and not as the start or end of an interpolation expression.
How to escape them:
Simply double the curly brace.
Examples:
string name = "Alice";
int age = 30;
// Showing how to include literal braces
string message = $"Hello, {name}! You are {{approximately}} {age} years old.";
Console.WriteLine(message); // Output: Hello, Alice! You are {approximately} 30 years old.
// More complex example
string template = "This is a template with {{placeholders}} and {0} and {{{1}}}.";
string result = string.Format(template, name, age);
Console.WriteLine(result); // Output: This is a template with {placeholders} and Alice and {30}.
// Example within an interpolated string using string.Format:
string output = $"Result: {string.Format("Value: {{0}}", 123)}";
Console.WriteLine(output); // Output: Result: Value: {123}
// Using verbatim strings (@) for even easier handling of special characters
string path = @"C:\MyFolder\{files}\data.txt"; // No need to escape backslashes here
Console.WriteLine(path); // Output: C:\MyFolder\{files}\data.txt
// Combining verbatim strings and escaped braces
string config = $@"Settings: {{ ""LogLevel"": ""Info"" }}";
Console.WriteLine(config); // Output: Settings: { "LogLevel": "Info" }Key takeaways:
{{represents a literal{character.}}represents a literal}character.- Doubling the braces is the only way to escape them within interpolated strings.
- Verbatim strings (
@"") can be very helpful when dealing with strings that contain many special characters, but they do not affect the need to escape braces within interpolated strings. They are complementary. You often use both together as shown in the last example.
By understanding how to escape braces, you can create more complex and dynamic strings in C# that include literal curly braces as needed.
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