Escape sequences
From Cppreference
Escape sequences are used to define certain special characters within string literals.
The following escape sequences are available:
| Escape sequence |
Description |
|---|---|
| \' | single quote (byte 0x27) |
| \" | double quote (byte 0x22) |
| \\ | backslash (byte 0x5c) |
| \0 | null character (byte 0x00) |
| \a | audible bell (byte 0x07) |
| \b | backspace (byte 0x08) |
| \f | form feed - new page (byte 0x0c) |
| \n | line feed - new line (byte 0x0a) |
| \r | carriage return (byte 0x0d) |
| \t | horizontal tab (byte 0x09) |
| \v | vertical tab (byte 0x0b) |
| \nnn | arbitrary octal value (byte nnn) |
| \xnn | arbitrary hexadecimal value (byte nn) |
| \unnnn | arbitrary Unicode value (code point U+nnnn). May result in several characters. |
| \Unnnnnnnn | arbitrary Unicode value (code point U+nnnnnnnn) May result in several characters. |
[edit] Notes
The new-line character \n has special meaning when used in text mode I/O, it is converted to the OS-specific newline byte or byte sequence.
Octal escape sequences have a limit of three octal digits, but terminate at the first character that is not a valid octal digit if encountered sooner.
Hexadecimal escape sequences have no length limit and terminate at the first character that is not a valid hexadecimal digit. If the value represented by a single hexadecimal escape sequence does not fit the range of values represented by the character type used in this string literal (char, char16_t, char32_t, or wchar_t), the result is unspecified.
A universal character name in a narrow string literal may map to more than one char due to multibyte encoding.
[edit] Example
#include <iostream> int main() { std::printf("This\nis\na\ntest\n\nShe said, \"How are you?\"\n");}
Output:
This is a test She said, "How are you?"