A complete reference of escape sequences across major programming languages and contexts — JavaScript, Python, Go, HTML entities, CSS string escaping, SQL string escaping, Regex metacharacters, and shell escaping. Searchable by character or escape sequence. Includes examples showing escaped usage.
Search for any character to find how to escape it across different contexts and languages. For escaping text for JSON specifically, use the JSON Escape / Unescape tool.
Tab character
Input
tab
Output
JS: \t | Python: \t | Regex: \t | HTML: 	
Escape special characters for JSON strings, or unescape JSON string values.
Encode special characters to HTML entities and decode them back.
Percent-encode URLs and query strings, or decode them.
Test regular expressions against sample text with live match highlighting.
Compare two blocks of text and highlight the differences.
Generate one or many UUIDs (v4) instantly.
| Sequence | Name | Unicode | Type | Description | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| \n | Newline (LF) | U+000A | Universal | Moves the cursor to the next line. | |
| \r | Carriage Return (CR) | U+000D | Universal | Moves the cursor to the beginning of the line. | |
| \t | Horizontal Tab | U+0009 | Universal | Moves the cursor to the next tab stop. | |
| \\ | Backslash | U+005C | Universal | Literal backslash character. | |
| \' | Single Quote | U+0027 | Universal | Literal single-quote character. | |
| \" | Double Quote | U+0022 | Universal | Literal double-quote character. | |
| \0 | Null | U+0000 | Universal | Null character; terminates strings in C. | |
| \a | Alert (Bell) | U+0007 | Universal | Triggers an audible or visible alert. | |
| \b | Backspace | U+0008 | Universal | Moves the cursor one position backwards. | |
| \f | Form Feed | U+000C | Universal | Advances paper to the next page in printers. | |
| \v | Vertical Tab | U+000B | Universal | Moves the cursor down one line. | |
| & | Ampersand | U+0026 | HTML | Must be escaped inside HTML text and attribute values. | |
| < | Less-than | U+003C | HTML | Must be escaped to avoid starting an HTML tag. | |
| > | Greater-than | U+003E | HTML | Should be escaped in HTML text nodes. | |
| " | Double Quote | U+0022 | HTML | Must be escaped inside double-quoted HTML attributes. | |
| ' | Single Quote | U+0027 | HTML | Must be escaped inside single-quoted HTML attributes. | |
| | Non-breaking Space | U+00A0 | HTML | Space that prevents line breaks at that position. | |
| %20 | Space | U+0020 | URL | Spaces are encoded as %20 in URL percent-encoding. | |
| %2F | Forward Slash | U+002F | URL | Slashes in query values should be percent-encoded. | |
| %3F | Question Mark | U+003F | URL | Must be encoded in query parameter values. | |
| %23 | Hash / Pound | U+0023 | URL | Denotes a fragment; must be encoded in query values. | |
| %26 | Ampersand | U+0026 | URL | Separates query parameters; encode when it appears in values. | |
| %2B | Plus Sign | U+002B | URL | Encode in query values to avoid being interpreted as a space. | |
| \. | Literal Dot | U+002E | Regex | Unescaped . matches any character; \. matches a literal period. | |
| \* | Literal Asterisk | U+002A | Regex | Unescaped * is a quantifier; \* matches a literal asterisk. | |
| \+ | Literal Plus | U+002B | Regex | Unescaped + is a quantifier; \+ matches a literal plus sign. | |
| \? | Literal Question Mark | U+003F | Regex | Unescaped ? is a quantifier; \? matches a literal question mark. | |
| \( | Literal Open Paren | U+0028 | Regex | Starts a group; \( matches a literal opening parenthesis. | |
| \[ | Literal Open Bracket | U+005B | Regex | Starts a character class; \[ matches a literal bracket. | |
| \^ | Literal Caret | U+005E | Regex | Anchors to start or negates a class; \^ matches a literal caret. | |
| \$ | Literal Dollar | U+0024 | Regex | Anchors to end of string; \$ matches a literal dollar sign. |