Literals and Escapes

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.