Defining a string over multiple lines

Question

Please take the following:

char buffer[512];

memset(buffer, 0, sizeof(buffer));
sprintf(&buffer[0],"This Is The Longest String In the World that in text goes on and..");

printf("Buffer:%s\r\n",buffer);

I would like to be able to create this string over multiple lines, for ease of troubleshooting and editing. However, when I use the \ command my output is separated by what appear to be tabs?

Example:

sprintf(&buffer[0],"This Is The\
    Longest String In the World\
    that in text goes on and..");

yields an output of:

Buffer:This Is The        Longest String In the World       that in text goes on and..

Any ideas? Is this just an incorrect approach to try to break up a string across multiple lines of code?

Answer 1

The newline continuation takes into account any whitespace within the code.

You can take advantage of string literal concatenation for better readability:

sprintf(buffer, "This Is The "
                "Longest String In the World "
                "that in text goes on and..");

Using \ you'll need to begin the continuation of your string at column 0:

sprintf(buffer, "This Is The \
Longest String In the World \
that in text goes on and..");