what does backward-slash b do in Python?

Question

what is the purpose of backward-slash b in python, I ran print \"\\\"foo\\bar\" in the python interpreter and got this result:

>>>p         


        

Answer 1

The \b is a back space character

\b  ASCII Backspace (BS)

If you want to print the string \foo\bar do this:

>>> print r"\foo\bar"
\foo\bar

This utilizes the raw strings available in python.

String literals may optionally be prefixed with a letter 'r' or 'R'; such strings are called raw strings and use different rules for interpreting backslash escape sequences

Answer 2

See the string literal documentation:

\b ASCII Backspace (BS)

It produces a backspace character. Your terminal backspaced over the second o when printing that character.