Why don't I have to escape equal sign?

Question

For example:

"1+1=2".replace(/=/,"aa");
"1+1=2".replace(/\=/,"aa");

return the same result.

Does it mean I don't have to escape "=" (the equal sign) in JavaScript? I remembered that I always have to escape equal sign in Java and .NET.

I tried to find some info from https://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/7.0/index.html but didn't come up with anything.

Can anyone help me find if the specification talks about escaping the equal sign?

Answer 1

I'd go with this table in MDN web docs. You'll see that = has no special meaning - just as @Barmar stated. You referred to lookaheads, which use ?=, but without the leading ? it's just an equal sign.

There are not many special characters which needs an additional special character to "work", I guess that's why it's confusing. Think of it as - in combination with [ and ]:

• 0-9 matches "0-9"
• [0-9] matches "0" and "1" and ... and "9"
• [0\-9] matches "0" and "1" and ... and "9" and "-"

So just - has no meaning and does not have to be escaped, only if combined with square brackets. The same applies to = with/without ?.