In C++, I can do this:
cout << "Line 1\nLine 2\n";
In Java, I can do this:
System.out.printf("Line 1%nLine 2%n");
In C#, do I really need to do one of these cumbersome things:
Console.WriteLine("Line 1");
Console.WriteLine("Line 2");
or
Console.Write("Line 1{0}Line 2{0}", Environment.NewLine);
or is there a more concise way, which is not platform-specific?
No, there is no concise, platform-agnostic, built-in newline placeholder in C#.
As a workaround, you could create an extension method for Environment.NewLine
public static class StringExtensions()
{
public static string NL(this string item)
{
return item += Environment.NewLine;
}
}
Now you can use NL (picked because of brevity)
Console.Write("Hello".NL());
Console.Write("World".NL());
writes out:
Hello
World
You could also make an extension method that simply writes out something to the console.
public static void cout(this string item)
{
Console.WriteLine(item);
//Or Console.Write(item + Environment.NewLine);
}
And then:
"Hello".cout();
.cout()) vs. cout <<). Not to mention my first solution is far more concise than the present implementation (if you have to write out Environment.NewLine a lot.
Environment.NewLine for that, then do so. My point is: Extension methods can solve this 'problem' for you.This should work:
Console.Write("Line 1\r\nLine 2");
On Windows, Environment.NewLine will just return "\r\n". So in your code you could do
Console.Write("Line 1\r\nLine 2\r\n");
Or simply
Console.Write("Line 1\nLine 2\n");
still works on most platforms. But otherwise you'll have to use the Environment.NewLine, or another similarly implemented and shorter named method, to return the correct string.
Normally I would recommend creating an extension method on the Console class, but that's not possible since Console is static. Instead, you could create a ConsoleHelper:
public static class ConsoleHelper
{
public static void EnvironmentSafeWrite(string s)
{
s = Environment.NewLine == "\n" ? s : s.Replace("\n", Environment.NewLine);
Console.Write(s);
}
}
And use it like this:
ConsoleHelper.EnvironmentSafeWrite("Line 1\nLine 2\n");
Have you tried the following?
Console.Write("Line 1\nLine2");
Depending on the environment you may need to use \r\n.
Environment.NewLine.Console.WriteLine() will simply output a newline without requiring other text.
You can change the defined string for NewLine by setting Console.Out.NewLine = "your string here";
\r\n Can be used on Windows platforms. However you question doesn't state which platform you are targeting. If you want your code to be multi-platform and future proof is probably safer to use Environment.NewLine
Just to offer yet another workaround:
With string interpolation (C# 6.0 and above), you can use
Console.Write($"Line 1{Environment.NewLine}Line 2{Environment.NewLine}");
Unfortunately, you can't define a constant for Environment.NewLine with a short name, since Environment.NewLine is not constant, but you can use a static readonly property as the next best thing:
private static readonly string NL = Environment.NewLine;
...
void someMethod()
{
...
Console.Write($"Line 1{NL}Line 2{NL}");
...
}
\nin C++ platform-agnostic? As far as I know that represents a linefeed character which is a valid Unix newline but not a complete Windows newline (it's\r\n), but I'm ignorant when it comes to C++.\r\ncould work, as\nis still part of it and will therefore be recognized as a newline on Unix systems.