Kotlin has two types of string literals:

• Escaped string
• Raw string

Escaped string handles special characters by escaping them. Escaping is done with a backslash. The following escape sequences are supported: \\t, \\b, \\n, \\r, \\', \\", \\\\ and \\$. To encode any other character, use the Unicode escape sequence syntax: \\uFF00.

val s = "Hello, world!\\n"

Raw string delimited by a triple quote """, contains no escaping and can contain newlines and any other characters

val text = """
    for (c in "foo")
        print(c)
"""

Leading whitespace can be removed with trimMargin() function.

val text = """
    |Tell me and I forget.
    |Teach me and I remember.
    |Involve me and I learn.
    |(Benjamin Franklin)
    """.trimMargin()

Default margin prefix is pipe character |, this can be set as a parameter to trimMargin; e.g. trimMargin(">").