Verbatim string is missing carriage return

Question

I have encountered a strange issue today. I have a verbatim string like this:

var s = @"     0     1
0     0"

i.e. there is a new line after the one. My Environment.NewLine is set to \r\n

This is part of a unit test and the tests have been working fine for the past several months. Now when I run my tests the above string declaration is resulting in:

"     0     1\n     0     0"

instead of

"     0     1\r\n     0     0"

Meaning the tests fail.

I have dumped out every character to prove this is true. I have also tried not using a verbatim string instead like this:

var s = "     0     1\r\n    0     0"

and the tests then pass.

Does anyone have any idea what could be happening here?

Maybe your source file literally has only `\n` - have you tried deleting the break and inserting it again, or else taken a look at the file with something that can show the actual bytes there? — 500 - Internal Server Error, Oct 21 '19 at 09:26
Thats it! I tried copying and pasting the code into notepad++ but obviously when I did that it corrected the line endings. If I open the file directly the line endings for some reason have been changed to just LF# — Tim Rutter, Oct 21 '19 at 09:31
Depending on a specific line ending is dangerous. Source control software (e.g. Git) might convert line endings on push or pull depending on the user's settings. — cremor, Oct 21 '19 at 09:31

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 21 '19 at 09:43

The answer is this: Git (most probably) swapped the line endings in the file to just LF. Depending on file line endings in unit tests is not a good idea so I have changed the code to specify the newlines explicitly in all cases, thus:

var s = "     0     1\r\n    0     0"

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 21 '19 at 09:33

1

If you want to use the string in a unit test it is best to ensure the content is always the same. I suggest to declare it like this:

var s = $"     0     1{Enviroment.NewLine}0     0";

answered Oct 21 '19 at 09:33

Stefan

652
5
19

Can Environment.NewLine not change? I appreciate its unlikely. Better to actually use \r\n explicitly – Tim Rutter Oct 21 '19 at 09:44
The `Enviroment.NewLine` can be different depending on the OS the software is running. It depends on how the unit test is implemented if it will break or not. If you use `Enviroment.NewLine` on both places it will not break the unit test. – Stefan Oct 21 '19 at 09:58
its a good point, I should be writing the data out using environment.newline. – Tim Rutter Oct 21 '19 at 10:04

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 26 '20 at 13:12

1

You can use string interpolation together with verbatim to add control characters.

var s = @$"     0     1{'\r'}
0     0"

answered Nov 26 '20 at 13:12

Bartosz Wójtowicz

1,321
10
18

i did not know that, thanks. however would the above not result in " 0 1\r\r\n0 0" ? – Tim Rutter Nov 27 '20 at 12:13
Depends which editor you use to enter the the new lines. – Bartosz Wójtowicz Nov 30 '20 at 12:38

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 30 '22 at 10:28

0

Please check this answer - basically it is caused by code editor end of line settings. We faced the same issue in unit tests.

answered Mar 30 '22 at 10:28

Pavel Cermak

1,215
10
13

Verbatim string is missing carriage return

4 Answers4