escape character (redirected from Character escaping)

A control character that precedes a string of one or more other characters that forms a command to a printer or display device. The escape character can be the escape (Esc) character itself (hex 1B in ASCII; hex 27 in EBCDIC) or some arbitrary character. The "escape sequence" causes the device to execute a command rather than print or display the characters. For example, the Escape character followed by &l10, sets the LaserJet printer to landscape mode.

The escape character may be used to achieve the opposite effect, causing a command to be displayed rather than executed. For example, in HTML, an ampersand (&) followed by lt stipulates that the less than symbol (<) should be printed. This is necessary to prevent the browser from executing commands when they are meant to be displayed online for educational purposes.