Question

The next basic data type is the string. Strings are used to represent text. They are written by enclosing their content in quotes.

"Patch my boat with chewing gum"
'Monkeys wave goodbye'

Both single and double quotes can be used to mark strings as long as the quotes at the start and the end of the string match.

Almost anything can be put between quotes, and JavaScript will make a string value out of it. But a few characters are more difficult. You can imagine how putting quotes between quotes might be hard. Newlines (the characters you get when you press Enter) also can’t be put between quotes. The string has to stay on a single line.

To make it possible to include such characters in a string, the following notation is used: whenever a backslash ( \ ) is found inside quoted text, it indicates that the character after it has a special meaning. This is called escaping the character. A quote that is preceded by a backslash will not end the string but be part of it. When an n character occurs after a backslash, it is interpreted as a newline. Similarly, a t after a backslash means a tab character. Take the following string:

"This is the first line\nAnd this is the second"

The actual text contained is this:

This is the first line
And this is the second

There are, of course, situations where you want a backslash in a string to be just a backslash, not a special code. If two backslashes follow each other, they will collapse together, and only one will be left in the resulting string value. This is how the string “ A newline character is written like "\n". ” can be expressed:

"A newline character is written like \"\\n\"."

Strings cannot be divided, multiplied, or subtracted, but the + operator can be used on them. It does not add, but it concatenates—it glues two strings together. The following line will produce the string "concatenate" :

"con" + "cat" + "e" + "nate"

There are more ways of manipulating strings, which we will discuss when we get to methods in Chapter 4 .

This is a book about getting computers to do what you want them to do. Computers are about as common as screwdrivers today, but they contain a lot more hidden complexity and thus are harder to operate and understand. To many, they remain alien, slightly threatening things.