JSP String != JavaScript String

Question

I've run across a problem that has intrigued me. Consider the following:
<% String test = new String();
test = "Hello Mr. Anderson...";
%>
<script language="javascript">
function doThis() {
alert("TEST: " + "<%=test%>");
</script>
// No problem, will work just fine. Now add an escape sequence (\n)
// to the test string
<% String test = new String();
test = "Hello Mr. Anderson...\n";
%>
<script language="javascript">
function doThis() {
alert("TEST: " + "<%=test%>");
</script>
Now we get
error: Unterminated string constant
on any call to doThis(). Why????? Javascript has wrappers around it's primitive data types as well, so I was thinking the conversion should be smooth here. Any experts out there know what's happening here?
Thanks,
Chris

Answer 1

The reason is you are printing out what's in the Java string to the browser, and that results in this:
"Hello Mr. Anderson...
So, as the first responder said, you need to escape the \n with \\n, which will write:
"Hello Mr. Anderson...\n"
in the browser, which will get translated in the Javascript parser as a new line.