Multiline string literal in C#

You can use the @ symbol in front of a string to form a verbatim string literal:

string query = @"SELECT foo, bar
FROM table
WHERE id = 42";

You also do not have to escape special characters when you use this method, except for double quotes as shown in Jon Skeet's answer.

It's called a verbatim string literal in C#, and it's just a matter of putting @ before the literal. Not only does this allow multiple lines, but it also turns off escaping. So for example you can do:

string query = @"SELECT foo, bar
FROM table
WHERE name = 'a\b'";

This includes the line breaks (using whatever line break your source has them as) into the string, however. For SQL, that's not only harmless but probably improves the readability anywhere you see the string - but in other places it may not be required, in which case you'd either need to not use a multi-line verbatim string literal to start with, or remove them from the resulting string.

The only bit of escaping is that if you want a double quote, you have to add an extra double quote symbol:

string quote = @"Jon said, ""This will work,"" - and it did!";

Add multiple lines : use @

string query = @"SELECT foo, bar
FROM table
WHERE id = 42";

Add String Values to the middle : use $

string text ="beer";
string query = $"SELECT foo {text} bar ";

Multiple line string Add Values to the middle: use $@

string text ="Customer";
string query = $@"SELECT foo, bar
FROM {text}Table
WHERE id = 42";

You can use @ and "".

        string sourse = @"{
        ""items"":[
        {
            ""itemId"":0,
            ""name"":""item0""
        },
        {
            ""itemId"":1,
            ""name"":""item1""
        }
        ]
    }";

In C# 11 [2022], you will be able to use Raw String literals. The use of Raw String Literals makes it easier to use " characters without having to write escape sequences.

Solution for OP:

string query1 = """
    SELECT foo, bar
    FROM table
    WHERE id = 42
    """;

string query2 = """
    SELECT foo, bar
    FROM table
    WHERE id = 42
    and name = 'zoo'
    and type = 'oversized "jumbo" grand'
    """;

More details about Raw String Literals

See the Raw String Literals GitHub Issue for full details; and Blog article C# 11 Preview Updates – Raw string literals, UTF-8 and more!

Yes, you can split a string out onto multiple lines without introducing newlines into the actual string, but it aint pretty:

string s = $@"This string{
string.Empty} contains no newlines{
string.Empty} even though it is spread onto{
string.Empty} multiple lines.";

The trick is to introduce code that evaluates to empty, and that code may contain newlines without affecting the output. I adapted this approach from this answer to a similar question.

There is apparently some confusion as to what the question is, but there are two hints that what we want here is a string literal not containing any newline characters, whose definition spans multiple lines. (in the comments he says so, and "here's what I have" shows code that does not create a string with newlines in it)

This unit test shows the intent:

    [TestMethod]
    public void StringLiteralDoesNotContainSpaces()
    {
        string query = "hi"
                     + "there";
        Assert.AreEqual("hithere", query);
    }

Change the above definition of query so that it is one string literal, instead of the concatenation of two string literals which may or may not be optimized into one by the compiler.

The C++ approach would be to end each line with a backslash, causing the newline character to be escaped and not appear in the output. Unfortunately, there is still then the issue that each line after the first must be left aligned in order to not add additional whitespace to the result.

There is only one option that does not rely on compiler optimizations that might not happen, which is to put your definition on one line. If you want to rely on compiler optimizations, the + you already have is great; you don't have to left-align the string, you don't get newlines in the result, and it's just one operation, no function calls, to expect optimization on.