What is the purpose of a backslash at the end of a line?

Question:

Just found the following module import in a Python code:

from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base,
      AbstractConcreteBase

I am curious about the backslash at the end of the first line. What’s the purpose of it? Wouldn’t it be the same as the following?

from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base, AbstractConcreteBase
Asked By: fedorqui

||

Answers:

Yep, it’s exactly the same and this is the point of the backslash — it escapes the newline, allowing this long line to be split in two. An alternative is to use parentheses:

from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import (declarative_base,
      AbstractConcreteBase)

While this is a syntax error:

from sqlalchemy.ext.declarative import declarative_base,
      AbstractConcreteBase
Answered By: Pavel Anossov

In the context of line-oriented text, especially source code for some programming languages, it is often used at the end of a line to indicate that the trailing newline character should be ignored, so that the following line is treated as if it were part of the current line.

Answered By: Mallareddy kartheek
Categories: questions Tags: , ,
Answers are sorted by their score. The answer accepted by the question owner as the best is marked with
at the top-right corner.