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.

What is escape sequence?

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

What is the purpose of escape sequence?

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 (“).