Backslash - Usage

Usage

In many programming languages such as C and Perl and in Unix scripting languages, the backslash is used to indicate that the character following it should be treated specially (if it would otherwise be treated normally), or normally (if it would otherwise be treated specially). It thus indicates escape characters. In various regular expression languages it acts as a switch, changing subsequent literal characters into metacharacters and vice versa. The backslash is used similarly in the TeX typesetting system and in RTF files to begin markup tags. In Haskell, the backslash is used both to introduce special characters and to introduce lambda functions (since it is a reasonable approximation in ASCII of the Greek letter lambda, λ).

In the context of line-oriented text, especially source code for some programming languages, it is often used at the end of a line to indicate that the trailing newline character should be ignored, so that the following line is treated as if it were part of the current line. In this context it may be called a "continuation". The GNU make manual says, "We split each long line into two lines using backslash-newline; this is like using one long line, but is easier to read."

The Microsoft core Windows API can accept either the backslash or slash to separate directory and file components of a path, but the Microsoft convention is to use a backslash, and APIs that return paths use backslashes. MS-DOS 2.0, released 1983, copied the hierarchical file system from Unix and thus used the forward slash, but (possibly on the insistence of IBM) added the backslash to allow paths to be typed into the command shell while retaining compatibility with MS-DOS 1.0 and CP/M where the slash was the command-line option indicator (i.e. as in typing "dir/w" to give the "wide" option to the "dir" command). Although the command shell was the only part of MS-DOS that required this, the use of backslash in filenames was propagated to most other parts of the user interface. Today, although the underlying operating system still supports either character, many Windows programs and sub-systems do not accept the slash as a path delimiter, or may misinterpret it if it is used as such. Some programs will only accept forward slashes if the path is placed in double-quotes. The failure of Microsoft's security features to recognize unexpected-direction slashes in local and internet paths, while other parts of the operating system still act upon them, has led to some serious lapses in security. Resources that should not be available have been accessed with paths using particular mixes, such as http://example.net/secure\private.aspx.

In the Japanese encodings ISO 646 (a 7-bit code based on ASCII), JIS X 0201 (an 8-bit code), and Shift JIS (a multi-byte encoding which is 8-bit for ASCII), the code point 0x5C that would be used for backslash in ASCII is instead rendered as a yen mark (¥), while in Korean encoding, it is drawn as a won currency symbol (₩). Computer programs still treat the code as a backslash in these environments, causing confusion, especially in MS-DOS filenames. Due to extensive use of the backslash code point to represent the yen mark, even today some Unicode fonts like MS Mincho render the backslash character as a ¥, so the Unicode characters 00A5 (¥) and 005C (\) look identical when these fonts are selected. Several other ISO 646 versions also replace backslash with characters like Ö (German, Swedish), Ø (Danish, Norwegian), ç (French) and Ñ (Spanish), although these seem not to have caused such widespread problems.

In mathematics, a backslash-like symbol is used for the set difference.

In some dialects of the BASIC programming language, the backslash is used as an operator symbol to indicate integer division.

In MATLAB and GNU Octave the backslash is used for left matrix divide, while the slash is for right matrix divide.

In PHP version 5.3 and higher, the backslash is used to indicate a namespace