Triple quotes in Java like Scala

Since Java 13 preview feature

REF: https://openjdk.java.net/jeps/355

It doesn't work precisely in Scala way. The opening triple quotes must be followed by a new line.

var expr = """
           This is a 1-line "string" with "quotes" and no leading spaces in it! """;

The position of the closing triple quotes matters. It defines the indent size. For example, for having 2 spaces indent, you position your closing """ as follows:

String sql = """
               SELECT   emp_id, last_name
               FROM     postgres.employee
               WHERE    city = 'INDIANAPOLIS'
               ORDER BY emp_id, last_name;
             """;

this would result in 4 lines of text:

  SELECT   emp_id, last_name
  FROM     postgres.employee
  WHERE    city = 'INDIANAPOLIS'
  ORDER BY emp_id, last_name;

---

Escaping:

Tripple quotes escaping is intuitive:

String txt = """
    A text block with three quotes \""" inside.""";

---

NOTE: This feature is preview, so you cannot use it in Java 13, unless you set the --enable-preview TextBlock key.

UPDATE: The feature went to the second preview (JEP 368) with Java 14.

Will be waiting for Java 15.

There is no good alternative to using \" to include double-quotes in your string literal.

There are bad alternatives:

• Use \u0022, the Unicode escape for a double-quote character. The compiler treats a Unicode escape as if that character was typed. It's treated as a double-quote character in the source code, ending/beginning a String literal, so this does NOT work.
• Concatenate the character '"', e.g. "This is a " + '"' + "string". This will work, but it seems to be even uglier and less readable than just using \".
• Concatenate the char 34 to represent the double-quote character, e.g. "This is a " + (char) 34 + "string". This will work, but it's even less obvious that you're attempting to place a double-quote character in your string.
• Copy and paste Word's "smart quotes", e.g. "This is a “string” with “quotes” in it!". These aren't the same characters (Unicode U+201C and U+201D); they have different appearances, but they'll work.

I suppose to hide the "disgusting"-ness, you could hide it behind a constant.

public static final String DOUBLE_QUOTE = "\"";

Then you could use:

String expr = " This is a " + DOUBLE_QUOTE + "string" + DOUBLE_QUOTE + ...;

It's more readable than other options, but it's still not very readable, and it's still ugly.

There is no """ mechanism in Java, so using the escape \", is the best option. It's the most readable, and it's the least ugly.