How do I do a multi-line string in node.js?

Question

node v4 and current versions of node

As of ES6 (and so versions of Node greater than v4), a new "template literal" intrinsic type was added to Javascript (denoted by back-ticks "`") which can also be used to construct multi-line strings, as in:

`this is a 
single string`

which evaluates to: 'this is a\nsingle string'.

Note that the newline at the end of the first line is included in the resulting string.

Template literals were added to allow programmers to construct strings where values or code could be directly injected into a string literal without having to use util.format or other templaters, as in:

let num=10;

console.log(`the result of ${num} plus ${num} is ${num + num}.`);

which will print "the result of 10 plus 10 is 20." to the console.

Older versions of node

Older version of node can use a "line continuation" character allowing you to write multi-line strings such as:

'this is a \
single string'

which evaluates to: 'this is a single string'.

Note that the newline at the end of the first line is not included in the resulting string.

Multiline strings are a current part of JavaScript (since ES6) and are supported in node.js v4.0.0 and newer.

var text = `Lorem ipsum dolor 
sit amet, consectetur 
adipisicing 
elit.  `;

console.log(text);

What exactly are you looking for when you mean multiline strings.

Are you looking for something like:

var str = "Some \
    String \
    Here";

Which would print as "Some String Here"?

If so, keep in mind that the above is valid Javascript, but this isn't:

var str = "Some \ 
    String \
    Here";

What's the difference? A space after the \. Have fun debugging that.

As an aside to what folks have been posting here, I've heard that concatenation can be much faster than join in modern javascript vms. Meaning:

var a = 
[ "hey man, this is on a line",
  "and this is on another",
  "and this is on a third"
].join('\n');

Will be slower than:

var a = "hey man, this is on a line\n" + 
        "and this is on another\n" +
        "and this is on a third";    

In certain cases. http://jsperf.com/string-concat-versus-array-join/3

As another aside, I find this one of the more appealing features in Coffeescript. Yes, yes, I know, haters gonna hate.

html = '''
       <strong>
         cup of coffeescript
       </strong>
       '''

Its especially nice for html snippets. I'm not saying its a reason to use it, but I do wish it would land in ecma land :-(.

Josh