pöördviiba

Pöördviiba is an Estonian term that translates to "backslash" in English. It is a typographical symbol represented by the character \. The backslash is primarily used in computing to denote directory structures on some operating systems, most notably Windows. In these systems, it serves as a separator between directory names within a file path. For example, a typical path might look like C:\Users\Documents\File.txt.

Beyond its role in file system navigation, the pöördviiba has other applications. In programming, it is often used as an escape character. This means it precedes a character that would otherwise have a special meaning, allowing it to be treated literally. For instance, in many programming languages, a newline character within a string is represented by \n. The pöördviiba is also used in regular expressions to escape special characters that have particular meanings within the regex syntax, thus allowing them to be matched literally. In some contexts, it can also be used as a division operator, though this is less common than its use in computing and programming. The pöördviiba is distinct from the forward slash (/), which serves a similar purpose as a path separator on other operating systems like Linux and macOS, and also has various uses in mathematics and other fields.