Escape character

Escape characters are part of the syntax for many programming languages, data formats, and communication protocols.

For example, the sequence of ^[, followed by the printable characters [2;10H, would cause a Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) VT102 terminal to move its cursor to the 10th cell of the 2nd line of the screen.

However, it is commonly absent from keyboards for PDAs and other devices not designed primarily for ASCII communications.

In user interfaces of the 1970s–1980s it was not uncommon to use this key as an escape character, but in modern desktop computers, such use is dropped.

Even with no dedicated key, the escape character code could be generated by typing [ while simultaneously holding down Ctrl.

Many modern programming languages specify the double-quote character (") as a delimiter for a string literal.

The PostScript language and Microsoft Rich Text Format also use backslash escapes.

So to refer to a file literally called "*", the shell must be told not to interpret it in this way, by preceding it with a backslash (\).

whereas this will output the string: In Windows, the backslash is used as a path separator; therefore, it generally cannot be used as an escape character.

For example, the following command: This article incorporates public domain material from Federal Standard 1037C.