In a Python script I’m looking at the string has a \ before it:
print """\
Content-Type: text/html\n
<html><body>
<p>The submited name was "%s"</p>
</body></html>
""" % name
If I remove the \ it breaks. What does it do?
Best answer
It tells Python to ignore the newline directly following the backslash. The resulting string starts with Content-Type:, not with \nContent-Type::
>>> '''\
This is the first line.
This is the second line.
'''
'This is the first line.\nThis is the second line.\n'
>>> '''
... This is the first line.
... This is the second line.
... '''
'\nThis is the first line.\nThis is the second line.\n'
Note how the two results differ; the first has no \n newline character at the start, the other does.