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Why is one single function \ printf not showing up on the output console screen, but double \\ does it?

Why is the single one \

in the function printf

not showing up on the output console screen, but double \\

does?

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main()
{
  //why is double \\ necessary?
  printf("\\");

  printf("\");
  //why here shown error in the second printf?

   printf("  " "dd " "  ");
  //why its executed successfully
  printf(" " "" ");
  //why it is shown errow
  return 0;
}
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4 answers


backslash is used for escape sequences.

An escape sequence is a sequence of characters that does not represent itself when used within a character or string literal, but translates to another character or sequence of characters that may be difficult or impossible to represent directly. (From Wikipedia)

In C, look at:

\ n for newline, \ t for tab. here the backslash is used as an escape sequence that does not represent itself



printf("\\");

here the first backslash is used as an escape sequence. so the second \ backslash will be printed. but

printf("\");

but for this case it's just an escape sequence. so it will show error

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An operator \

in a statement is printf()

used to escape characters. For example, \n

means newline

, \0

means null character

. etc. So when you use just \

it expects some character to be escaped. In the second, the printf()

character to be escaped becomes "

, making your statement printf()

incomplete. So it shows an error whereas the first code is \

after the first \

, so it is treated as a character to be displayed, not an escape character.

From Wikipedia



An escape sequence is a sequence of characters that does not represent itself when used inside a character or string literal, but is converted to another character or sequence of characters that may be difficult or impossible to represent directly.

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\

is already used as the first character for escape sequences, for example \n

, this is a newline and \t

is a horizontal tab. To print a character \

, you need an escape sequence \\

.

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because the backslash ie \ is used for escape sequences. These escape sequences are used to perform special tasks like formatting, playing a beep (\ a), and since it is treated as a special character, the compiler thinks you want to do some special task when you write "\" in printf. which means you can't print \ so, to print \ just type it twice "\"

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