Science Fair Project Encyclopedia

Escape character

In computing and telecommunication, an escape character is one which has a special meaning in a sequence of characters.

Usually, it signifies that what is to follow is from a different character code, i.e., have meanings other than normal.

In alphabet coding schemes, a specially designated character, the occurrence of which in the data signifies that one or more of the characters to follow are from a different character code, i.e., have meanings other than normal.
In a text-control sequence of characters, a control character that indicates the beginning of the sequence and the end of any preceding text. This is for instance used to control character terminals and printers (see escape sequence).
In the ASCII character code, the character ESC with decimal code 27 and hexadecimal code 1B.

Some of this article is based on material from Federal Standard 1037C

10-26-2009 08:16:03
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