How can I print a single backslash?

Question

When I write print('\') or print("\") or print("'\'"), Python doesn't print the backslash \ symbol. Instead it errors for the first two and prints '' for the third. What should I do to print a backslash?

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_{This question is about producing a string that has a single backslash in it. This is particularly tricky because it cannot be done with raw strings. For the related question about why such a string is represented with two backslashes, see Why do backslashes appear twice?. For including literal backslashes in other strings, see using backslash in python (not to escape).}

Answer 1

You need to escape your backslash by preceding it with, yes, another backslash:

print("\\")

The \ character is called an escape character, which interprets the character following it differently. For example, n by itself is simply a letter, but when you precede it with a backslash, it becomes \n, which is the newline character.

As you can probably guess, \ also needs to be escaped so it doesn't function like an escape character. You have to... escape the escape, essentially.

See the documentation for string literals.

Answer 2

For completeness: A backslash can also be escaped as a hex sequence: "\x5c"; or a short Unicode sequence: "\u005c"; or a long Unicode sequence: "\U0000005c". All of these will produce a string with a single backslash, which Python will happily report back to you in its canonical representation - '\\'.

Answer 3

print(fr"\{''}")

or how about this

print(r"\ "[0])

Answer 4

A hacky way of printing a backslash that doesn't involve escaping is to pass its character code to chr:

>>> print(chr(92))
\