backslash - continuation and escape character
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Description
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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):
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Character
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Meaning
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ASCII Name
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a
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bell (alert)
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BEL
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b
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backspace
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BS
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e
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escape
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ESC
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f
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form feed
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FF
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n
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new line (line feed)
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LF
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r
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carriage return
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CR
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t
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horizontal tab
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HT
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v
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vertical tab
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VT
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x
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hexadecimal encoding
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\
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\
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backslash
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Examples Using \
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3.14159\26535\89793\23846;
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"This sentence contains\na line break";
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`This sentence is noisy on text-based versions of Maple\a`;
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"This contains\x0Aa line break and some 8-bit characters: \x9A \xBC";
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for i to 5 do printf("\t%d\t%2d\n",i,i^2) end do;
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Download Help Document
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