Gammon Forum

Escape Sequences
Character combinations consisting of a backslash (\) 
followed by a letter or by a combination of digits 
are called “escape sequences.” To represent a newline character, single quotation mark, or certain other 
characters in a character constant, you must use 
escape sequences. An escape sequence is regarded as 
a single character and is therefore valid as a character constant. 

Escape sequences are typically used to specify actions 
such as carriage returns and tab movements on terminals 
and printers. They are also used to provide 
literal representations of nonprinting characters 
and characters that usually have special meanings, 
such as the double quotation mark ("). Table 1.4 
lists the ANSI escape sequences and what they represent.

Note that the question mark preceded by a 
backslash (\?) specifies a literal question mark 
in cases where the character sequence would be 
misinterpreted as a trigraph. See Trigraphs for 
more information.

Table 1.4   Escape Sequences

Escape Sequence Represents 
\a Bell (alert) 
\b Backspace 
\f Formfeed 
\n New line 
\r Carriage return 
\t Horizontal tab 
\v Vertical tab 
\' Single quotation mark 
\"  Double quotation mark 
\ Backslash 
\? Literal question mark 
\ooo ASCII character in octal notation 
\xhhh ASCII character in hexadecimal notation 

#include <stdio.h>
#include <conio.h>
main()
{
	int i;
	printf("Line 1.\n\rLine 2.\n\rLine 3.\n\rPress ENTER to continue!");
	getch();
	for(i=1;i<45;i++)
		printf ("\b");
	printf("Line rewritten.");
}