Escape Sequence
Escape sequences or escape characters in programming are characters that have a meaning beyond the character itself. These character are usually
used to represent whitespace such as tabs, spaces, escape, or newlines as in Enter. Escape characters can also drop a characters special meaning
within the confines of a programming language for its use as a literal character, like within a string for example. Escape characters are usually denoted by a backslash:
\.
Common Escape Sequences are:
| Escape Sequence | Meaning |
|---|---|
| \n | Newline |
| \t | Tab |
| \b | Backspace |
| \r | Carriage Return (Return to beginning of line) |
| \a | Audible Bell (Produces a beep sound) |
| ' | Escape Single Quote |
| " | Escape Double Quote |
| \ | Escape Backslash |
Examples
Newline character (\n)
Printing on separate lines:
print("Hello\nWorld")
Output:
Hello
World
Tab character (\t)
Creating a tabular format:
print("Name\tAge")
print("John\t25")
print("Alice\t30")
Output:
Name Age
John 25
Alice 30
Backslash character (/)
Escaping special characters:
print("This is a backslash: \\")
Output:
This is a backslash:
Single quote (') and double quote (")
Embedding quotes in strings:
print("He said, \"Hello!\"")
print('I\'m fine.')
Output:
He said, "Hello!"
I'm fine.
Carriage return (\r)
Overwriting a line:
print("Loading...", end='\r')
# Perform some time-consuming task here
print("Done!")
Unicode character (\uXXXX and \UXXXXXXXX)
Using Unicode characters:
print("\u2665") # Heart symbol (U+2665)
print("\U0001F600") # Grinning face emoji (U+1F600)
Output:
♥
😄
Unicode and Ascii will be discussed in the following section.