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)

• 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")

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)

You may further be interested in:

• Usage of forward slash (/) in Python
• 5 usages of an asterisk (*) in Python
• Usage of the Underscore(_) in Python