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Quotes in JavaScript

Published Aug 02 2018

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JavaScript allows you to use 3 types of quotes:

• single quotes
• double quotes
• backticks

The first 2 are essentially the same:

const test = 'test'
const bike = "bike"

There’s little to no difference in using one or the other. The only difference lies in having to escape the quote character you use to delimit the string:

const test = 'test'
const test = 'te\'st'
const test = 'te"st'
const test = "te\"st"
const test = "te'st"

There are various style guides that recommend always using one style vs the other.

I personally prefer single quotes all the time, and use double quotes only in HTML.

Backticks are a recent addition to JavaScript, since they were introduced with ES6 in 2015.

They have a unique feature: they allow multiline strings.

Multiline strings are also possible using regular strings, using escape characters:

const multilineString = 'A string\non multiple lines'

Using backticks, you can avoid using an escape character:

const multilineString = `A string
on multiple lines`

Not just that. You can interpolate variables using the ${} syntax:

const multilineString = `A string
on ${1+1} lines`

I cover backticks-powered strings (called template literals) in a separate article, that dives more into the nitty-gritty details.

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