Question

I have to check for character sequences like \chapter{Introduction} from the strings read from a file. To do this I have to first check for the occurence of backslash.

This is what I did

 final char[] chars = strLine.toCharArray();
         char c;
         for(int i = 0; i<chars.length; i++ ){
            c = chars[i];
            if(c ==  '\' ) {

            }
         }

But the backslash is treated as an escape sequence rather than a character.

Any help on how to this would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

The backward slash is an escape character. If you want to represent a real backslach, you have to use two backslashes (it’s then escaping itself). Further, you also need to denote characters by singlequotes, not by doublequotes. So, this should work:

if (c == '\\')

See also:

• JLS 3.10.4 – Character Literals
• JLS 3.10.6 – Escape Sequences