Line Splicing in C/C++

In C/C++, Line splicing is a small feature that lets you split one long line of code into two lines by using a special symbol that is the backslash (\).

Line splicing is a preprocessor feature, not a function or method. It does not have any parameters. But it simply affects how lines of code are interpreted by the preprocessor before compilation.

How to Use Line Splicing?

If a line of code is too long, and you want to break it into multiple lines to make it easier to read. You can use a backslash at the end of a line to tell the compiler that "This line continues on the next line". 

C Example of Line Splicing

This C example prints a long message by splitting it into two lines in the code using line splicing with a backslash (''):

#include<stdio.h>
int main() {
    printf("This is a very long message \
that is split into two lines using line splicing.\n");
    return 0;
}

Following is the output to the above program:

This is a very long message that is split into two lines using line splicing.

C++ Example of Line Splicing

This program shows how to use line splicing (\) in C++ to split a long string into two lines without breaking the output:

#include<iostream>
using namespace std;
int main() {
    cout<<"Line splicing is useful in C++ \
when you want to split long lines of code.";
    return 0;
}

Following is the output to the above program:

Line splicing is useful in C++ when you want to split long lines of code.