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For example, in Python, raw strings are preceded by an r or R – compare 'C:\\Windows' with r'C:\Windows' (though, a Python raw string cannot end in an odd number of backslashes). Python 2 also distinguishes two types of strings: 8-bit ASCII ("bytes") strings (the default), explicitly indicated with a b or B prefix, and Unicode strings ...
In C and many derivative programming languages, a string escape sequence is a series of two or more characters, starting with a backslash \. [3]Note that in C a backslash immediately followed by a newline does not constitute an escape sequence, but splices physical source lines into logical ones in the second translation phase, whereas string escape sequences are converted in the fifth ...
A similar phenomenon occurs for DOS/Windows paths, where the backslash is used as a path separator, requiring a doubled backslash \\ – this can then be re-escaped for a regular expression inside an escaped string, requiring \\\\ to match a single backslash.
Many modern programming languages specify the double-quote character (") as a delimiter for a string literal. The backslash (\) escape character typically provides two ways to include double-quotes inside a string literal, either by modifying the meaning of the double-quote character embedded in the string (\" becomes "), or by modifying the ...
Python has various string literals: Delimited by single or double quotes; unlike in Unix shells, Perl, and Perl-influenced languages, single and double quotes work the same. Both use the backslash (\) as an escape character. String interpolation became available in Python 3.6 as "formatted string literals". [110]
Most often, ending a line with a backslash (immediately followed by a newline) results in the line being continued – the following line is joined to the prior line. This is generally done in the lexer: The backslash and newline are discarded, rather than the newline being tokenized. Examples include bash, [6] other shell scripts and Python. [7]
For instance, inside a C string literal the sequence \n produces a newline byte instead of an 'n', and the sequence \" produces an actual double quote rather than the special meaning of the double quote ending the string. An actual backslash is produced by a double backslash \\.
Since UNCs start with two backslashes, and the backslash is also used for string escaping and in regular expressions, this can result in extreme cases of leaning toothpick syndrome: an escaped string for a regular expression matching a UNC begins with 8 backslashes – \\\\\ – because the string and regular expression both require escaping.