How do you print out a string exactly as it is?

Question

I had an issue with my code because my file path somehow ended up with a "\\n" at the end of the path which caused issues when trying to use the file, as it would not be able to find that file.

For debugging purposes, how can I print out a string INCLUDING things like \\b \\n \\r etc.?

Eg

System.out.println(file.getAbsolutePath).withSpecials()

which will print to console:

C:/folder/filename.extension\n

Answer 1

You could try using this code, which escapes a string. This takes care of all escapes except \\u\u003c/code> , which should display fine anyway.

public static String escape(String str) {
    str = str.replace("\b", "\\b");
    str = str.replace("\t", "\\t");
    str = str.replace("\n", "\\n");
    str = str.replace("\r", "\\r");
    str = str.replace("\f", "\\f");
    str = str.replace("\'", "\\'");
    str = str.replace("\\", "\\\\");
    return str;
}

This function can be used as follows:

System.out.println(escape("123\n\rabc"));

Answer 2

public class Main {

    public static void main(String arg[]) {

        String str = "bla\r\n";

        System.out.print(str); // prints "bla" and breaks line
        System.out.print(Main.withEndings(str)); // prints "bla\r\n"

        // Breaks a line
        System.out.println();

        // Every char is a number, Java uses by default UTF-16 char encoding
        char end = '\n';
        System.out.println("Char code: " + (int)end); // prints "Char code: 10"
    }

    public static String withEndings(String str) {
        // Replace the character '\n' to a string with 2 characters the '\' and the 'n',
        // the same to '\r'.
        return str.replace("\n", "\\n").replace("\r", "\\r");
    }
}

Answer 3

You can print the \\n by doing string.replace("\\n", "\\\\\\\\n");

So to print it out do: System.out.println(file.getAbsolutePath().replace("\\n", "\\\\\\\\n"));