for an authoritative reference on code points and character namesconsult optionallyyou can precede string literal with an or rsuch as in '\dthese strings are known as raw strings because all their backslash characters are left intact--that isthe string literally contains the enclosed textincluding the backslashes the main use of raw strings is to specify literals where the backslash character has some significance examples might include the specification of regular expression patterns with the re module or specifying filename on windows machine (for exampler' :\newdata\tests'raw strings cannot end in single backslashsuch as "\within raw strings\uxxxx escape sequences are still interpreted as unicode charactersprovided that the number of preceding characters is odd for instanceur"\ defines raw unicode string with the single character + whereas ur"\\ defines seven-character string in which the first two characters are slashes and the remaining five characters are the literal " alsoin python the must appear after the in raw unicode strings as shown in python the prefix is unnecessary string literals should not be defined using sequence of raw bytes that correspond to data encoding such as utf- or utf- for exampledirectly writing raw utf- encoded string such as 'jalape\xc \xb osimply produces nine-character string + au+ + cu+ + + + + + fwhich is probably not what you intended this is because in utf- the multibyte sequence \xc \xb is supposed to represent the single character + not the two characters + and + to specify an encoded byte string as literalprefix the first quote with "bas in "jalape\xc \xb owhen definedthis literally creates string of single bytes from this representationit is possible to create normal string by decoding the value of the byte literal with its decode(method more details about this are covered in and "operators and expressions the use of byte literals is quite rare in most programs because this syntax did not appear until python and in that version there is no difference between byte literal and normal string in python howeverbyte literals are mapped to new bytes datatype that behaves differently than normal string (see appendix "python "containers values enclosed in square brackets ]parentheses )and braces denote collection of objects contained in listtupleand dictionaryrespectivelyas in the following examplea 'hellob ' ' ' ' list tuple dictionary listtupleand dictionary literals can span multiple lines without using the linecontinuation character (\in additiona trailing comma is allowed on the last item for examplea 'hello' lib fl ff