What does backslash mean in programming?

Answer 1

In computing, the backslash character \ has many different uses. Aside from being the file path separator character on Windows-based operating systems, the backslash most commonly is used as an escape character. An escape character is one that alters the meaning of the character which follows it:

• On a Unix console, a backslash can prevent a space from breaking two words into two tokens.
• In C Programming (and many other programming languages), when used within a string, a backslash character is the preamble to an escape sequence, a one or more character sequence with a special meaning. For example, \n stands for a newlinecommand when interacting with console output, \x12represents a character with the hexadecimal value 12.
• In C programming, when used outside a string and as the last character on an input line, the backslash indicates line continuation. The compiler will thus treat the current line and the one that follows as one line of input.
• In regular expressions, a backslash character is typically used to change a special character into a plain character. For example, most regular expression dialects recognize the period as an operator that matches any input character. The sequence \. can be used to match a period.

Answer 2

A backslash is one that leans "backward", like this: \

It's used as an "escape" character in certain formatting sequences.