GNU Info

(bashref.info)Escape Character

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Escape Character
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   A non-quoted backslash `\' is the Bash escape character.  It
preserves the literal value of the next character that follows, with
the exception of `newline'.  If a `\newline' pair appears, and the
backslash itself is not quoted, the `\newline' is treated as a line
continuation (that is, it is removed from the input stream and
effectively ignored).