Lexical Structure - The Java Language Specification - page 33

3.10.6. Escape Sequences for Character and String Literals

The character and string escape sequences allow for the representation of some nongraphic
characters as well as the single quote, double quote, and backslash characters in character
literals (§ 3.10.4 ) and string literals (§ 3.10.5 ) .

EscapeSequence:
\ b /* \u0008 : backspace BS */
\ t /* \u0009 : horizontal tab HT */
\ n /* \u000a : linefeed LF */
\ f /* \u000c : form feed FF */
\ r /* \u000d : carriage return CR */
\ " /* \u0022 : double quote “ */
\ ' /* \u0027 : single quote ' */
\ \ /* \u005c : backslash \ */
OctalEscape /* \u0000 to \u00ff : from octal value */

OctalEscape:
\ OctalDigit
\ OctalDigit OctalDigit
\ ZeroToThree OctalDigit OctalDigit
OctalDigit: one of
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
ZeroToThree: one of
0 1 2 3

It is a compile-time error if the character following a backslash in an escape is not an ASCII
b , t , n , f , r , " , ' , \ , 0 , 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , or 7 . The Unicode escape \u is processed earlier (§ 3.3 ) .

Octal escapes are provided for compatibility with C, but can express only Unicode
values \u0000 through \u00FF , so Unicode escapes are usually preferred.

3.10.7. The Null Literal

The null type has one value, the null reference, represented by the null literal null , which is
formed from ASCII characters.

NullLiteral:
null

A null literal is always of the null type (§ 4.1 ).