---
title: Constants
slug: ps/help/en_us/vtm/tsg/constants
docTags: 
createdAt: 2026-08-02T09:41:21.179Z
---

TrafficScript allows you to specify integer, boolean, floating point, and string values:

- Integers: sequences of digits, such as “23”; hex format (0xff) and octal format (\377) are also supported.
- Boolean: TrafficScript provides two boolean keyword constants, true and false, for use in comparison expressions. These constants are synonymous with 1 and 0 respectively, and can be used where an explicit truth test or return value is required.
- Floating point: decimal point (3.14) and scientific (5.6e-2) notations are both supported.
- Strings: strings are character sequences, enclosed by double (“) quotes or single (‘) quotes.

:::Paragraph{indent="1"}
In double-quoted strings, special characters can be escaped using the standard backslash “\” notation (for example, “\n” is a newline character), using octal notation (“\012” is also a newline) or using hexadecimal notation (“\x0A” is a newline).
:::

:::Paragraph{indent="1"}
In single-quoted strings, no escaping is performed. For example, “\n” is not converted to the newline character.
:::

:::Paragraph{indent="1"}
In both types of string, for improved readability, strings can be broken across lines using a single “\” followed by a newline:
:::

```bash
# The following two lines both create the string ‘Hello world’

$single = 'Hello \
world';

$double = "Hello \
world";
```

:::Paragraph{indent="1"}
Although, in the case of a single quoted string, not specifying the “\” at the end of the line still causes TrafficScript to insert a newline character.
:::

Be aware of escaping rules when writing regular expressions in TrafficScript. For example, in a double-quoted TrafficScript string, the character “\” automatically escapes the next character, so if you want a literal “\” in your string, double-escape it using “\\\”. For this reason, regular expressions are often written using single-quoted strings.