Escape Sequences

A character preceded by a backslash (\) is an escape sequence and has special meaning to the compiler. The newline character (\n) has been used frequently in this tutorial in System.out.println() statements to advance to the next line after the string is printed. The following table shows the Java escape sequences:

Escape Sequences Escape Sequence Description
\t Insert a tab in the text at this point.
\b Insert a backspace in the text at this point.
\n Insert a newline in the text at this point.
\r Insert a carriage return in the text at this point.
\f Insert a formfeed in the text at this point.
\' Insert a single quote character in the text at this point.
\" Insert a double quote character in the text at this point.
\\ Insert a backslash character in the text at this point.

When an escape sequence is encountered in a print statement, the compiler interprets it accordingly. For example, if you want to put quotes within quotes you must use the escape sequence, \", on the interior quotes. To print the sentence

She said "Hello!" to me.

you would write

System.out.println("She said \"Hello!\" to me.");