How to escape double curly bracket in string.Format()

Question

I have already seen from other answers that to escape the { or } char in C# string.Format() you use {{ or }}.

But what I need to do is format a string that looks like this:

{{tag}}

However, when I try to escape the double curly braces like this:

string.Format("{{{0}}}", "tag");

or this:

string.Format("{{{{{0}}}}}", "tag");

The output is always this:

{tag}

A different way I have found that works is:

StringBuilder output = new StringBuilder(); output.Append("{{"); output.Append("tag"); output.Append("}}");

But it seems silly to have to have all that just to format a string.

Am I missing something obvious?

Your second variant using 5 braces on each side works for me! string.Format("{{{{{0}}}}}", "tag"); ==> {{tag}} — Olivier Jacot-Descombes
– Olivier Jacot-Descombes, Commented Mar 20, 2014 at 22:38
Your second sample string.Format("{{{{{0}}}}}", "tag"); works perfectly. — Dmitry
– Dmitry, Commented Mar 20, 2014 at 22:38

JaredPar · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-20 22:45:58Z

5

In order to do this you need 5 braces on either side of the expression

Console.WriteLine("{{{{{0}}}}}", "tag");

The break down is

answered Mar 20, 2014 at 22:45

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1 Comment

Seems I had it correct the first time, I'm not clear what my issue was. A rebuild of the solution seemed to help. Thanks everyone

Kalu Singh Rao · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-30 14:59:40Z

2

You can use code this way.

string.Format("{0}{1}{2}", "{{","tag","}}");

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answered Mar 20, 2014 at 22:46

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