Perl Strings

'Hello World!'      # Returns 'Hello World!', supports escaping of ' and \
'It\'s\\It is'      # Returns 'It's\It is'
'Don\'t "escape"'   # Returns 'Don't "escape"'
'Hello\nWorld!'     # Returns 'Hello\nWorld!'

"Hello World!"      # Returns 'Hello World!', supports escaping multiple
                    # characters, including \n and \t, and interpolation
"Hello\nWorld!"     # Returns 'Hello
                    #          World!'

'Hello' . ' ' . 'World!' # Returns 'Hello World!'

$hi = "Hello";
# The two types of interpolation are equivalent. The first type is used
# for variable names that would cause ambiguity.
"${hi} World!"      # Returns 'Hello World!'
"$hi World!"        # Returns 'Hello World!'

Python Strings

A ‘ and ” are interpreted as being the same in Python. “”” delimits a multi-line string. There is no reason to use one style of string delimiter over the other, although I personally follow the style presented by Will Harris in StackOverflow (see bottom for summary).

'Hello World!'      # Returns 'Hello World!'
"Hello World!"      # Returns 'Hello World!'
"""Hello World!"""  # Returns 'Hello World!'

'Hello              # Error: ' doesn't support unescaped newlines
World!'

'Hello\nWorld!'     # Returns 'Hello\nWorld!'

"Hello              # Error: " doesn't support unescaped newlines
World!"

"Hello\nWorld!"     # Returns 'Hello\nWorld!'

"""Hello            # Returns 'Hello\nWorld!'
World!"""

"""Hello\nWorld!""" # Returns 'Hello\nWorld!'

'Hello' + ' ' + 'World!'      # Returns 'Hello World!'

'%s %s!' % ('Hello', 'World') # Interpolation, returns 'Hello World!'

Will Harris’ style for Python string, summary

• Single quotes for small symbol-like strings.
• Double quotes around strings that are used for interpolation or that are natural language messages.
• Triple double quotes for docstrings and raw string literals for regular expressions.