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<span id="Inserting-a-Backslash"></span><div class="header">
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Next: <a href="Inserting-a-Hashsign.html" accesskey="n" rel="next">Inserting a Hashsign</a>, Previous: <a href="Inserting-a-Comma.html" accesskey="p" rel="prev">Inserting a Comma</a>, Up: <a href="Special-Characters.html" accesskey="u" rel="up">Special Characters</a> [<a href="index.html#SEC_Contents" title="Table of contents" rel="contents">Contents</a>][<a href="Command-and-Variable-Index.html" title="Index" rel="index">Index</a>]</p>
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<span id="Inserting-_0060_005c_0027-with-_0040backslashchar_007b_007d"></span><h4 class="subsection">12.1.4 Inserting ‘\’ with <code>@backslashchar{}</code></h4>
<span id="index-backslashchar"></span>
<span id="index-Backslash_002c-inserting"></span>
<p>Ordinarily, a backslash ‘\’ is a normal character in Texinfo that can
be simply typed in your input where you need it. The result is to
typeset the backslash from the typewriter font.
</p>
<p>However, Texinfo uses the backslash as a special character in one
restricted context: to delimit formal arguments in the bodies of
user-defined macros (see <a href="Defining-Macros.html">Defining Macros</a>).
</p>
<p>Due to the vagaries of macro argument parsing, it is more reliable to
pass an alphabetic command that produces a backslash instead of using
a literal \. Hence <code>@backslashchar{}</code>. Here is an example
macro call:
</p>
<div class="example">
<pre class="example">@mymac{One argument@backslashchar{} with a backslash}
</pre></div>
<span id="index-_005cbackslash"></span>
<p>Texinfo documents may also use \ as a command character inside
<code>@math</code> (see <a href="Inserting-Math.html">Inserting Math</a>). In this case, <code>@\</code> or
<code>\backslash</code> produces a “math” backslash (from the math symbol
font), while <code>@backslashchar{}</code> produces a typewriter
backslash as usual.
</p>
<p>Although ‘<samp>@backslashchar{}</samp>’ can be used nearly anywhere, there
is no need for it except in these unusual cases.
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