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The backslash, \, is a typographical mark ( glyph) used chiefly in computing. Sometimes called a reverse solidus, it is the mirror image of the common slash or solidus.

On Unix systems, and in Unix-affiliated programming languages such as C and Perl, the backslash is used to indicate that the character following it should be treated specially. It is sometimes referred to as the escape character, though this risks confusion with the character generated by the Esc key.

On DOS and Microsoft Windows computer systems, the backslash is used as a delimiter for directory names in file paths. This is in contrast to Unix and other directory systems such as internet addresses, which use the slash for this purpose. The backslash was chosen for path delimiter because in an early version – which did not support directories and thus had no need for a path delimiter – the slash was used to introduce command-line options (which are prefixed by a hyphen ("-") in Unix systems).

In the TeX typesetting system, the backslash begins a markup tag.

In the GNU Emacs text editor, the backslash appears at the end of lines that wrap around to the next line.

In the JapaneseThe Japanese language is a spoken and written language used mainly in Japan. The Japanese name for the language is Nihongo . History and classification Historical linguists do not all agree about the origin of the Japanese language; there are several comp equivalent of ASCIIASCII A merican S tandard C ode for I nformation I nterchange , generally pronounced 'aski', is a character set and a character encoding based on the Roman alphabet as used in modern English and other Western European languages. It is most commonly used b, the code point that would be used for backslash is instead a yenNatsume Soseki. New yen notes will enter circulation, replacing these, on November 1, 2004. Yen is the currency used in Japan. In Japanese it is usually pronounced "en", but the pronunciation "yen" is standard in English. The ISO 4217 codes for the yen ar mark (¥), while on KoreaKorea is a formerly unified country, situated on the Korean Peninsula in north East Asia adjacent to China in the west and Russia in the north. When World War II ended in 1945, the country was divided into two: the Republic of Korea ( South Korea) and then computer keyboardA computer keyboard is a peripheral modelled after the typewriter keyboard. Keyboards are designed for the input of written text, and also to control the operation of the computer. Physically, computer keyboards are an arrangement of rectangular or near-rs, the backslash corresponds to the wonWon is the official currency used in both South Korea and North Korea. Their exchange values differ, however. Full names Symbols Abbr. North Korean won n or Wn KPW South Korean won or W KRW Historically, North and South Korean won have been divided into 1 symbol (₩ or W). Many Japanese environments nonetheless treat it like a backslash, causing confusion.