Mastering Multiline Strings in JavaScript

Handling multiline strings in JavaScript can significantly enhance the readability and maintainability of your code, especially when dealing with long text or incorporating newlines directly. JavaScript offers several methods for creating multiline strings. We’ll explore each of them below.

How do template literals work in JavaScript?

Template literals, introduced in ES6, stand as the preferred method for crafting multiline strings in modern JavaScript. They allow multiline strings and embedded expressions to coexist seamlessly within backticks (`), eliminating the need for concatenation.

const multilineString = `This is a line.
And this is another line.
This too is a line.`;
console.log(multilineString);

How to escape newline characters in JavaScript?

Previously, developers relied on the newline character (\\n) within single or double quotes to create multiline strings. This method directly inserts line breaks where needed.

const multilineString = "This is a line.\\nAnd this is another line.\\nThis too is a line.";
console.log(multilineString);

Although functional, this approach tends to reduce code readability for more extensive text segments.

What is string concatenation?

String concatenation breaks the string into parts, joining them with the + operator. This was another common method before ES6 for handling multiline strings.

const multilineString = "This is a line. " +
"And this is another line. " +
"This too is a line.";
console.log(multilineString);

Like escaping newline characters, concatenation can make code harder to read and maintain, especially as text length increases.

Best practices

Template literals are the modern and most efficient way to manage multiline strings in JavaScript. They not only improve code readability but also offer flexibility with embedded expressions. While you may still encounter older methods in legacy code, adopting template literals for new projects will enhance your development workflow.