Escape characters. Escape characters are used to remove the special meaning from a single character. A non-quoted backslash, , is used as an escape character in Bash. It preserves the literal value of the next character that follows, with the exception of newline.

What does escaping characters mean?

In computing and telecommunication, an escape character is a character that invokes an alternative interpretation on the following characters in a character sequence. An escape character is a particular case of metacharacters.

What is an escape sequence in Linux?

Invented by Bob Bemer, an escape sequence is two or more characters that often begin with an escape character that tell the computer to perform a function or command. Below is a listing of some commonly used escape sequences used in programming languages and text editors.