Escape sequences represent special characters or character values that cannot be written directly in the usual character-literal form. They begin with a backslash \.

#include <stdio.h>

int main()
{
    printf("First line\nSecond line\n");
    printf("Column 1\tColumn 2\n");
    printf("He said, \"Hello!\"\n");
    printf("C:\\Program Files\\C\n");

    return 0;
}

Example Output #

First line
Second line
Column 1    Column 2
He said, "Hello!"
C:\Program Files\C

Explanation #

The escape sequences in the example are interpreted specially by the C compiler:

\n

moves the output to the next line.

\t

inserts a horizontal tab.

\"

represents a double-quote character inside a string literal.

\\

represents a backslash character.

Common Escape Sequences #

Escape sequences can also represent character values using octal and hexadecimal notation.

Octal and Hexadecimal Escape Sequences #

For example:

char a = '\101';
char b = '\x41';

Both represent the character A on an ASCII execution character set.

The hexadecimal escape sequence continues consuming hexadecimal digits until a non-hexadecimal character is encountered, so its boundary can matter when writing adjacent characters.