Text blocks are multiline strings that can be defined with a variable.

Normally, You can define the variable initialized with a string literal in one line using double quotes.

String message="Welcome to my site"

If you want to assign a multi-line string to a string variable, You have to use escape characters and double quotes

Java 13 and 14 released the Text Block for a String as a Preview feature. Java 15 released Text blocks as a usable feature.

Text blocks can be used in multiple places. Text block always starts with three double quotes

This is the new syntax for writing multi-line strings without escape characters.

  • You can define string literal with multiple lines as given below

Here is an example

String multiLineStr = """
               line 1
               line 2
               line 3
               """;
  • Another way, used as an argument

For example, the println method accepts a string of text blocks.

System.out.println(""" line 1 line 2 line 3 “”");

String text block methods

New methods are added to the String class

  • formatted method

    String formatted(Object... args)

Here is an example

String result = """
    Id: %s
    Name: %s
    Marks: $%.2f
    """.formatted(id, name, marks);
  • String stripIndent()

stripIndent() method removes spaces from a multi-line string.

  • String translateEscapes() translateEscapes method translates escape characters.

What is a text block in Java?

Text block is a way of storing multi-line strings simply and easily in java15. It is not required to have line breaks or escape characters for multi-line. Define multi-line string, enclosed in triple quotes.