Last updated: Friday 31st October 2008, 7:14 PT by AHD

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This page was taken from a search for escape sequences at www.python.org

ASCII codes

Escape Sequence	Meaning	Notes
\newline	Ignored
\\	Backslash (\)
\'	Single quote (')
\"	Double quote (")
\a	ASCII Bell (BEL)
\b	ASCII Backspace (BS)
\f	ASCII Formfeed (FF)
\n	ASCII Linefeed (LF)
\N{name}	Character named name in the Unicode database (Unicode only)
\r	ASCII Carriage Return (CR)
\t	ASCII Horizontal Tab (TAB)
\uxxxx	Character with 16-bit hex value xxxx (Unicode only)	(1)
\Uxxxxxxxx	Character with 32-bit hex value xxxxxxxx (Unicode only)	(2)
\v	ASCII Vertical Tab (VT)
\ooo	ASCII character with octal value ooo	(3)
\xhh	ASCII character with hex value hh	(4)

Notes:

(1)

Individual code units which form parts of a surrogate pair can be encoded using this escape sequence.

(2)

Any Unicode character can be encoded this way, but characters outside the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP) will be encoded using a surrogate pair if Python is compiled to use 16-bit code units (the default). Individual code units which form parts of a surrogate pair can be encoded using this escape sequence.

(3)

As in Standard C, up to three octal digits are accepted.

(4)

Unlike in Standard C, at most two hex digits are accepted.

Unlike Standard C, all unrecognized escape sequences are left in the string unchanged, i.e., the backslash is left in the string. (This behavior is useful when debugging: if an escape sequence is mistyped, the resulting output is more easily recognized as broken.) It is also important to note that the escape sequences marked as ``(Unicode only)'' in the table above fall into the category of unrecognized escapes for non-Unicode string literals.

When an "r" or "R" prefix is present, a character following a backslash is included in the string without change, and all backslashes are left in the string. For example, the string literal r"\n" consists of two characters: a backslash and a lowercase "n". String quotes can be escaped with a backslash, but the backslash remains in the string; for example, r"\"" is a valid string literal consisting of two characters: a backslash and a double quote; r"\" is not a valid string literal (even a raw string cannot end in an odd number of backslashes). Specifically, a raw string cannot end in a single backslash (since the backslash would escape the following quote character). Note also that a single backslash followed by a newline is interpreted as those two characters as part of the string, not as a line continuation.

When an "r" or "R" prefix is used in conjunction with a "u" or "U" prefix, then the \uXXXX escape sequence is processed while all other backslashes are left in the string. For example, the string literal ur"\u0062\n" consists of three Unicode characters: `LATIN SMALL LETTER B', `REVERSE SOLIDUS', and `LATIN SMALL LETTER N'. Backslashes can be escaped with a preceding backslash; however, both remain in the string. As a result, \uXXXX escape sequences are only recognized when there are an odd number of backslashes.