Java string new line
In this article, we will take a look at various methods to line break between multiple strings or print each string from next line with example programs.

Method 1: Add new line characters
Each Operating system or platform has its own line separators or line break character which is
A. \n on Linux, Unix and Mac OS.
B. \r\n on Windows

Adding these characters where a line break is required inserts or prints a new line. Example,

System.out.print("this is line1\n");
System.out.print("this is line2");

which prints

this is line1
this is line2

Method 2: Using System.lineSeparator()
Using line break characters for each OS or platform is not recommended. To print a new line, we need to check for current OS and add a line break with an if-else statement.
java.lang.System class has a static lineSeparator() method which returns the new line character according to the OS on which the application is currently running. Example,

String s = "line1" + System.lineSeparator() + "line2";
System.out.println(s);

This method was introduced in java 7.

Method 3: Using line.separator property
Every JVM has a pre-defined property line.separator which returns the platform specific new line character. To get this property value, use System.getProperty() method. Example,

String s = "line1" + System.getProperty("line.separator") + "line2"; 
System.out.println(s);

Remember that System.lineSeparator() also invokes System.getProperty("line.separator") internally.
Method 4: Using String.format()
String.format() formats the string values supplied to it according to the format and returns the formatted string.
It can be used to print a new line.

String.format() accepts following arguments
1. format
A string which contains format characters such as %s, %n where %s stands for string and %n means a platform dependent new line character.
It may contain only format specifiers or a combination of string and format specifiers.

2. String values
Second argument is a var args. It can be 0 or any number of strings. These strings refer to the format specifiers that were provided as first argument.

Example code using String.format() to print a new line is given below

// format specifiers for both strings
System.out.println(String.format("%s%n%s", "First", "Second"));

// format specifier for second string
System.out.println(String.format("First%n%s", "Second"));

// format specifier for first string
System.out.println(String.format("%s%nSecond", "First"));

Note that %n stands for new line.
All the above lines produce the same output

First
Second

Out of all the methods covered in this article, we must use System.lineSeparator() to insert a new line or line break between strings. With this method, we need not write OS or platform dependent checks, JVM takes care of it.

Hope the article was useful.