The \ (backslash) is used to insert apostrophes, carriage returns, quotes, tabs, and other special characters inside a string.
For example, in JavaScript, the start and stop of a string is delimited with either single or double quotes. However, if the string contains single and/or double quotes, you have problems.
Consider the string, "My favorite rose is the "Peach Delight.""
JavasScript will chop the output to, My favorite rose is the
Fortunately, this has a very simple solution. All you have to do is to place a backslash \ before each double quote in "Peach Delight". This turns each \" into a string literal.
The string is becomes, "My favorite rose is the \"Peach Delight\"."
JavasScript will now output, My favorite rose is the "Peach Delight".
This same concept is used with a variety of other characters. These backslash pairs are refered to as inline or escaped characters:
| Code: | Outputs: |
| \' | single quote |
| \" | double quote |
| \\ | backslash |
| \b | backspace |
| \f | form feed |
| \n | new line |
| \r | carriage return |
| \t | tab |