Escape Characters

In Python, escape characters are backslash \ followed by the character you want to insert. This special sequence allows you to include particular string values that wouldn’t be possible to write directly.

Common Escape Characters#

Here are some common escape characters used in Python:

1. \n : Inserts a newline in the text at that point.
2. \t : Inserts a tab in the text at that point.
3. \\ : Inserts a backslash character in the text at that point.
4. \" : Inserts a double quote character in the text at that point.
5. \' : Inserts a single quote character in the text at that point.

Let’s see these escape characters in action with some examples.

 1# Use of \n
 2print("Hello\nWorld")
 3
 4# Use of \t
 5print("Hello\tWorld")
 6
 7# Use of \\
 8print("Hello\\World")
 9
10# Use of \"
11print("Hello\"World")
12
13# Use of \'
14print('Hello\'World')

Running the above code outputs:

Hello
World
Hello	World
Hello\World
Hello"World
Hello'World

Raw Strings#

Sometimes you might want to ignore the escape sequences in a string. This can be done using raw strings. Simply prefix your string with a r or R.

1# Without raw string
2print("C:\\user\\name")
3
4# With raw string
5print(r"C:\\user\\name")

In the first print statement, \n is treated as a newline. However, in the second print statement, it’s treated as the literal characters ‘' and ’n’.

Running the above code outputs:

C:\user
ame
C:\\user\\name