Line Splicing in C/C++

• Difficulty Level : Easy
• Last Updated : 13 Apr, 2021

While writing a program, sometimes we give comment about the working of the code in the comment section with the help of single/double comment line. But we had never thought that if at the end of this comment line if we use \(backslash) character then what will happen?
The answer of the above question is line Splicing. Lines terminated by a \ are spliced together with the next line very early in the process of translation. §2.2 Phases of translation. 
Actually whenever at the end of the comment line if we use \(backslash) character then it merges the immediate next line with current line which makes the new line also as a comment for the compiler. To avoid this issue multi-line comment can be used.
 

C

// C program to illustrate the concept of Line splicing.

#include <stdio.h>

int main()

{

    // Line Splicing\

    printf("Hello GFG\n");

    printf("welcome\n");

    /* Example 2 - both of the below lines will be printed*/ \

    printf("Hello\t");

    printf("World");

    return (0);

}

Output:

welcome

Hello World

Explanation: In the above program as we can see when we use the \(backslash) character at the end of comment line. Then the next line of code is treated as comment in the program and the output is welcome. When we use multiline comment this issue get solved and both of the below lines of multiline comment will be printed.
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