Question: > 
> **Possible Duplicate:**  
> 
> [What's the @ in front of a string for .NET?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/556133/whats-the-in-front-of-a-string-for-net) 
> 
> 
> 

I understand using the `@` symbol is like an escape character for a string.

However, I have the following line as a path to store a file to a mapped network drive:

`String location = @"\\192.168.2.10\datastore\\" + id + "\\";`

The above works fine but now I would like to get a string from the command line so I have done this:

`String location = @args[0] + id + "\\";`

The above doesn't work and it seems my slashes aren't ignored. This my command:

`MyProgram.exe "\\192.168.2.10\datastore\\"`

How can I get the effect of the `@` symbol back?

Answer: 
@-quoted string literals start with @ and are enclosed in double quotation marks. For example:

```
@"good morning"  // a string literal

```

The advantage of @-quoting is that escape sequences are not processed, which makes it easy to write, for example, a fully qualified file name:

```
@"c:\Docs\Source\a.txt"  // rather than "c:\\Docs\\Source\\a.txt"

```

To include a double quotation mark in an @-quoted string, double it:

```
@"""Ahoy!"" cried the captain." // "Ahoy!" cried the captain.

```

Another use of the @ symbol is to use referenced (/reference) identifiers that happen to be C# keywords. For more information, see 2.4.2 Identifiers.

<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/362314fe(v=vs.71).aspx>
The @ symbol is only relevant for string literals in code. Variables should never modify the contents of a string.