Connection String Visual Studio 2013 database -- unrecognized escape sequence

Question

My connection string is:

Data Source=MAX-PC\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=newSchool;Integrated Security=True

but whenever I write :

SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection("Data Source=MAX-PC\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=newSchool;Integrated Security=True");

it gives me an error

unrecognized escape sequence

under the \ in Max-PC\SQLEXPRESS

Answer 1

\ is a speacial character to create escape sequences. you can use \\ or you can put '@' beginning of your connection string to ignore escape characters

var conn = new SqlConnection(@"Data Source=MAX-PC\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=newSchool;Integrated Security=True");

Answer 2

C# will understand the '\S' as an escape character. The correct would be double back-slash, or the use of @ before the opening ".

SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection("Data Source=MAX-PC\\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=newSchool;Integrated Security=True");

or

SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(@"Data Source=MAX-PC\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=newSchool;Integrated Security=True");