String.Replace with \ in it?

Question

How can I replace the "\" in a string with a double slash "\\"?

I tried String.Replace("\","\\") but then intellisense stops working :(

Thanks!

Answer 1

Try:

String.Replace("\\","\\\\")

This is because a character can follow \, which makes a special character. \" means put a literal double quote in the string, rather than close it.

Here are some common ones:
\n - Line feed
\r - Carriage return (Windows newlines are \r\n)
\t - Tab

The other answers, which say to use @"\" are right and easier to understand, so should probably be used instead.

Answer 2

\ is a reserved character in a string, it's an "escape". So, for instance, \n means a linefeed constant.

string.Replace(@"\", @"\\") would work just fine -- the @ tells the compiler to ignore the escaping of \.

Alternatively, \\ means one backslash -- so string.Replace("\\", "\\\\") would work just fine too (although it's a bit unreadable).