The Python Apprentice

Multiline strings and newlines

If you want a literal string containing newlines, you have two options:

• Use multiline strings,
• Use escape sequences.   

First, let's look at multiline strings. Multiline strings are delimited by three quote characters rather than one. Here's an example using three double-quotes:

>>> """This is... a multiline... string"""'This is\na multiline\nstring'

Notice how, when the string is echoed back to us, the newlines are represented by the \n escape sequence.

We can also use three single-quotes:

>>> '''So... is... this.''''So\nis\nthis.'

As an alternative to using multiline quoting, we can just embed the control characters ourselves:

>>> m = 'This string\nspans mutiple\nlines'>>> m'This string\nspans mutiple\nlines' ...