backslash - Maple Help
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backslash

continuation and escape character

 

Description

Examples Using \

Description

• 

The backslash character (\) serves several purposes in Maple: as a continuation character, as an inert separator, and as an escape character to introduce control characters.

• 

In 2-D math, characters that are shortcut keys must be escaped.  To do this, type a backslash followed by the character.  For more information, see the section Escaping Characters that are Shortcut Keys in 2-D Math Shortcut Keys and Hints.

• 

When a backslash character appears as the last character on an input line, whether typed at the Maple command line, or read from a file, the backslash, and the following line ending, is ignored. In other words, the subsequent line is treated as a continuation of the current line.

• 

When a backslash occurs in the middle of a sequence of characters that is contained within double quotes (") or backquotes (`) and it is immediately followed by one of the following characters, the corresponding control character is introduced (if applicable):

Character

Meaning

ASCII Name

 

 

 

a

bell (alert)

BEL

b

backspace

BS

e

escape

ESC

f

form feed

FF

n

new line (line feed)

LF

r

carriage return

CR

t

horizontal tab

HT

v

vertical tab

VT

x

hexadecimal encoding

 

\

\

backslash

  

When a backslash occurs in the middle of a sequence of characters that is contained within double quotes or backquotes and it is not followed by one of the previously listed characters, the backslash is simply ignored.

• 

The sequence \x must be immediately followed by two hexadecimal digits (0 through 9, A through F, or a through f). Any two digits except 00 are permissible. Values above 7F will display in a platform and character set dependent manner. A \x followed by only a single hexadecimal digit is discarded.

• 

The backslash is ignored if it occurs within numbers. Therefore, when entering long numbers, the backslash can be used to separate groups of digits for improved readability.

• 

Note to Windows users: when typing filenames, which use the backslash as a directory separator, you can either type each backslash as two backslashes, or you can use forward slashes. See Examples: Opening a File.

• 

On input lines beginning with the ! (shell command) or ? (help command) characters, backslashes are not processed by Maple. For ! lines, the backslashes are passed on to the underlying operating system shell as part of the command. (Refer to escape for more information). For ? lines, the backslash is treated literally. That is, ?\ displays this help page.

Examples Using \

`x\y`;

xy

(1)

3.14159\26535\89793\23846;

3.14159265358979323846

(2)

abcdefghijklm := 67;

abcdefghijklm67

(3)

12 + abcdef\
ghijklm;

79

(4)

"This sentence contains\na line break";

This sentence contains a line break

(5)

`This sentence is noisy on text-based versions of Maple\a`;

This sentence is noisy on text-based versions of Maple

(6)

"This contains\x0Aa line break and some 8-bit characters: \x9A \xBC";

This contains a line break and some 8-bit characters: � �

(7)

for i to 5 do printf("\t%d\t%2d\n",i,i^2) end do;

    1     1
    2     4
    3     9
    4    16
    5    25

See Also

2-D Math Shortcut Keys and Hints

escape

file

name

string