Steps

 1. How to escape a Json String

In tutorial How To Declare Variables And Types, we learned the syntax to create and assign an immutable String variable. Let's assume that you have a JSON String which represents a donut object with properties donut_name, taste_level and price.

How would you define a variable to store the donut JSON String?

println("Step 1: How to escape a Json String")
val donutJson: String ="{"donut_name":"Glazed Donut","taste_level":"Very Tasty","price":2.50}"

NOTE:

• The Scala compiler will complain about the double quotes in the JSON field names.

2. Using backslash to escape quotes

If you have used another programming language like Java or .NET in the past, you would be familiar with escaping quotes in a String using backslash \

println("\nStep 2: Using backslash to escpae quotes")
val donutJson2: String ="{\"donut_name\":\"Glazed Donut\",\"taste_level\":\"Very Tasty\",\"price\":2.50}"
println(s"donutJson2 = $donutJson2")

You will see the output below when you run your Scala application in IntelliJ:

Step 2: Using backslash to escpae quotes
donutJson2 = {"donut_name":"Glazed Donut","taste_level":"Very Tasty","price":2.50}

NOTE:

• As you can see from above, we were able to print a JSON String by making use of backslash \
• This is great but if you have longer text to escape, I'm sure you will get bored quite quickly : ) by having to escape each and every individual quote within your JSON String. So, let's see how to make this easier in Step 3 below.

3. Using triple quotes """ to escape characters

Fortunately Scala has a much better solution! To help you easily escape characters and symbols inside strings, you just need to wrap the text within triple quotes """<YOUR TEXT TO ESCAPE>""" as follows:

println("\nStep 3: Using triple quotes \"\"\" to escape characters")
val donutJson3: String = """{"donut_name":"Glazed Donut","taste_level":"Very Tasty","price":2.50}"""
println(s"donutJson3 = $donutJson3")

You will see the output below when you run your Scala application in IntelliJ:

Step 3: Using triple quotes """ to escape characters
donutJson3 = {"donut_name":"Glazed Donut","taste_level":"Very Tasty","price":2.50}

4. Creating multi-line text using stripMargin

As we've just seen in Step 3, using """ should be a clear winner on escaping quotes and other symbols! But, programmers in today's world demand much more :)

What if you would like to indent your text so that it's more readable? Look no further, Scala is here to help with the use of stripMargin:

val donutJson4: String =
    """
      |{
      |"donut_name":"Glazed Donut",
      |"taste_level":"Very Tasty",
      |"price":2.50
      |}
      """
   .stripMargin

You will see the output below when you run your Scala application in IntelliJ:

Step 4:  Creating multi-line text using stripMargin
donutJson4 = 
{
"donut_name":"Glazed Donut",
"taste_level":"Very Tasty",
"price":2.50
}