Bash Reference Manual: Escape Character
3.1.2.1 Escape Character
A non-quoted backslash
`\' is the Bash escape character.
It preserves the literal value of the next character that follows,
with the exception of
newline. If a
\newline pair
appears, and the backslash itself is not quoted, the
\newline
is treated as a line continuation (that is, it is removed from
the input stream and effectively ignored).
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