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:

>>> print "\"foo\bar" "foar 

Answer 1

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.

Answer 2

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