How do I escape a backslash "\"?

[Aaron Grosky]

I've used the backslash to escape most other special characters.  However, when I tried to escape a backslash, the expected "\\" was converted to a newline.

[Scott W. Sander]

This is due to a mistake Atlassian made with the markup syntax early on, using the double backslash character sequence as a newline. I agree that it is frustrating, but Atlassian has repeatedly stated that they won't fix it because it would break backwards compatibility.

As described in JRASERVER-9528, a bug report on this subject, the official recommendation/workaround is to use the HTML character sequence for the backslash character:

\

[Brad Kemper]

You can paste this character in: ＼

It looks like the backslash (REVERSE SOLIDUS), but it is actually another character, called FULLWIDTH REVERSE SOLIDUS. 

There is also this one: ﹨(SMALL REVERSE SOLIDUS) and this one: ╲ (BOX DRAWINGS LIGHT DIAGONAL UPPER LEFT TO LOWER RIGHT).

They really make you jump through hoops to get something that looks like a backslash in the Jira comment.

[Brad Kemper]

You can also insert a zero-width space in between the backslash and the character that would make it act like an escape. Like this:

\​_ or \​*

[Italo Qualisoni [e-Core]]

Hi @Aaron Grosky ,

As far that I know you don't need to escape backslash "\"; You can go ahead and just use the backslash character.

I've tested in a JIRA description and I had the following result:

using \ resulted in \

using \\ resulted in a newline as you mentioned.

If my answer don't answer your question, please share with us step-by-step with your issue.

[wu chen]

@Italo Qualisoni [e-Core]  Maybe a misunderstand.

As the AG said,  the expected "\\" was converted to a newline.

I raised the similar jira questions earlier: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/How-do-i-input-quot-0-quot-and-quot-0-quot-in-JIRA-comments/qaq-p/1562170, no response yet.

[Italo Qualisoni [e-Core]]

If you want to have \\ you should type \\\\

use \\\\  results in \\

[Aaron Grosky]

@Italo Qualisoni _e-Core_

@Wu Chen did not misunderstand me.  I tried to highlight a backslash, e.g. "... use a \ to ...".  *\* becomes ** and *\\* becomes two stars separated by a newline.

For consistency, any special character following a backslash should have its meaning changed.   \\ should make the second \ a printable \.  \@ should not complain about the text which follow it (an unescaped @ is not a problem since it formats correctly).  \newline should be the way to force a newline (change the newline from white space to a required newline).

IMO, both \\ and \@ not escaping the second character are bugs and should be fixed.  If \\ is a documented way of forcing a newline, then fixing this may be difficult because of backward compatibility.

[Italo Qualisoni [e-Core]]

It's documented here that \\ produces a new line:

https://jira.atlassian.com/secure/WikiRendererHelpAction.jspa?section=breaks

Now it's clear that you want to produce \ (bold \ character) using wiki markup.

Using the new WYSIWYG editor I can make it work and see in issue history *\\* is used. But if I try to create an issue using *\\* in the description, the issue description stay empty.

This might be indeed a bug and I would recommend open an issue to Atlassian support in https://support.atlassian.com/

[Aaron Grosky]

Actually, the Atlassian documentation conflicts.  In one section, the \\ is clearly documented as creating a line break.  However, in another section the \ is said to remove the special properties of the following character.

As to the WYSIWYG editor, this is the first I've heard of it.  That may be a new feature that is not yet available where I work.

[wu chen]

Yep, expected \\ characters (0x5c, 0x5c in ASCII) always can not be showed in JIRA comments.

I'm not sure why this rule exists, remove this "\\ creates a line break" limit, in fact, at least it's not bad .