Literals and Escapes

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Every string in Zolo uses double quotes. There is no single-quote string syntax — 'a' is a character literal (type char), useful in comparisons but distinct from str.

The basic escape sequences are \n (newline), \t (tab), \" (quote inside a string), and \\ (literal backslash):

Literals, escapes, and the .len() method on simple strings.

01-literals-and-escapes.zolo

Playground

// Feature: Strings — literals and escape sequences

// Syntax: `"..."` (the only string form in Zolo)

// When to use: represent text. Single quotes are CHAR literals.


// Strings always use double quotes.

let greeting = "Hello, world!"
print(greeting)

// expected: Hello, world!


// Basic escape sequences.

print("line 1\nline 2")  // \n line break

print("col1\tcol2\tcol3")  // \t tab

print("quote: \"")  // \" literal quote inside string
print("slash: \\")  // \\ literal backslash

print("return: end\rstart")  // \r carriage return


// Single quotes are CHAR literals (1 character only).

// Useful for character comparisons, not strings.

let c = "a"
print(c == "a")

// expected: true


// Non-ASCII characters / emoji: paste the character directly.

// The `\u{...}` escape is NOT supported by the current lexer.

print("Acai - cafe")
print("emoji: rocket")

// Empty strings and single-char strings.

let empty = ""
let s = "x"
print(empty.len())  // 0

print(s.len())  // 1

Challenge

Create a string containing a backslash followed by a literal n (i.e. the two characters \ and n, not a newline). Print it and confirm the output shows \n and not a blank line.