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Soumendra Kumar Sahoo
Soumendra Kumar Sahoo

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Usage of backward slash (\) in Python

In Python, the backslash (\) character is used for several purposes, such as:

  • To specify escape sequences, like \n for a newline, \t for a tab, etc.
  • To escape special characters - the backward slash is used to escape special characters such as quotation marks and newline characters in strings. For example:
# escaping special characters in a string

my_string = "This is a string with a \"quotation mark\" and a newline character \n in it"
print(my_string)

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  • To split a string into multiple lines by using the \ character at the end of each line. For example, the following code will print hello world on two lines:
# continuing a line of code

print("This is a very long line of code that cannot fit on one line" \
      "so we are using the backward slash to continue it on the next line")
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It's important to note that in Python, the backslash character is used for escaping characters, and it is not the same as the forward slash (/) character, which is used for division. For example, the following code will print 5.0:

print(10 / 2)
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