Escape Characters

Sometimes you want to output things in a text that cannot simply be written as-is — for example a line break in the middle of a sentence, or a quotation mark. For this, there are "escape characters": a backslash (\) followed by a letter that has a special meaning.

System.out.println("First line\nSecond line");

// Output:
// First line
// Second line

The escape character ____ produces a line break in the middle of the text.

The escape character \t produces a tab — a larger, even amount of spacing. This lets you roughly align text into columns.

System.out.println("Name:\tMax");
System.out.println("Age:\t17");

// Output:
// Name:   Max
// Age:    17

What is the escape character \t used for?

If you want to output a regular quotation mark in the middle of a text, there is a problem: Java would think the string ends there. The solution is \" — an "escaped" quotation mark that is treated as plain text.

System.out.println("She said: \"Java is awesome!\"");

// Output:
// She said: "Java is awesome!"

To output a quotation mark inside a text, you write \" instead of just ".

And what if you want to output a backslash itself — for example in a file path? Since a single backslash normally starts an escape character, you have to double it: \\.

System.out.println("The path is: C:\\Programs\\Java");

// Output:
// The path is: C:\Programs\Java

To output a single backslash, you write ____ in the code.