# Java: Regex Literal Characters

[SERIOUSLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION] Most characters can simply be written directly in a regular expression because they're easy to write in a Java string and they have not special meaning to the regular expression engine. But some characters are not easily entered or have special meaning.

## Characters that can't be typed directly

Java provides several ways to represent characters in a string.

- Using backslash for specific characters.
- Unicode representation.

`\\` | The backslash character
`\t` | The tab character (`'\u0009'`)
`\n` | The newline (line feed) character (`'\u000A'`)
`\r` | The carriage-return character (`'\u000D'`)
`\f` | The form-feed character (`'\u000C'`)
`\a` | The alert (bell) character (`'\u0007'`)
`\e` | The escape character (`'\u001B'`)
`\c` x | The control character corresponding to x