Shortest string expressions stable under deleting quotes Forgetting quotes can lead to certain problems.
For example, in Scala the two expressions:

"("+("+")+(")+(")+")"
 ("+("+")+(")+(")+")


differ only in starting and ending quotes, but they respectively yield the result:

(+)+()
+()+()+


But this expression in scala almost has the desired property:

def m="+m+"
""+m+""


Your task is to write the shortest expression surrounded with quotes, such that if we remove the outer quotes, the expression still returns the same string.

Key points:


Your language must support "..." as string literals
The program has to contain at least three characters
You are not allowed to define a context outside of the quotes themselves (as I did for m)
You are not allowed to use other delimiters for strings, e.g. no """, no '.
Both expressions should return strings.
Shortest code wins (counting the quotes themselves)
C  (4 chars)



The expression

""""


satisfies the minimal requirement of three characters. It encodes the empty string, no matter even if you omit one level of quotes:

 ""


If you want the resulting string to be at least three characters, here is an expression of length 10 which results in three characters of string, namely three spaces:

""   "   "
 "   "   


If you don't like spaces either, here are four printable characters in a length 12 expression:

""/**/"/**/"
 "/**/"/**/


Putting these expressions into a small program:

#include &lt;stdio.h&gt;
#define CASE(s) printf("'%s'\n", s)
int main() {
  CASE("""");
  CASE("");
  CASE(""   "   ");
  CASE("   "   );
  CASE(""/**/"/**/");
  CASE("/**/"/**/);
}


Output:

''
''
'   '
'   '
'/**/'
'/**/'