c# - Why does .NET add an additional slash to the already existent slashes in a path?

Question

I've noticed that C# adds additional slashes () to paths. Consider the path C:Test. When I inspect the string with this path in the text visualiser, the actual string is C:\Test.

Why is this? It confuses me, as sometimes I may want to split the path up (using string.Split()), but have to wonder which string to use (one or two slashes).

Answer 1

The \ is used because the is an escape character and is need to represent the a single .

So it is saying treat the first as an escape character and then the second is taken as the actual value. If not the next character after the first would be parsed as an escaped character.

Here is a list of available escape characters:

' - single quote, needed for character literals
" - double quote, needed for string literals
\ - backslash
 – Null 
a - Alert 
 - Backspace 
f - Form feed 

 - New line 

 - Carriage return 
 - Horizontal tab 
v - Vertical quote 
u - Unicode escape sequence for character 
U - Unicode escape sequence for surrogate pairs. 
x - Unicode escape sequence similar to "u" except with variable length.

EDIT: To answer your question regarding Split, it should be no issue. Use Split as you would normally. The \ will be treated as only the one character of .