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ESC — Escape
| Byte | 0x1B |
| Mnemonic | ESC |
| Otty support | ✓ |
Description
The single most important control byte. ESC introduces every multi-byte sequence in the terminal vocabulary — CSI, OSC, ESC-final, DCS, APC, and so on.
A bare ESC (followed by no recognised intermediate / final) resets the parser. In an OSC or DCS payload, ESC begins a string terminator (ESC \).
In shell readline and many editors, the ESC key is also used as a meta prefix — Esc Esc cancels, Esc x enters meta mode.
Example
bash
printf '\e[31m red \e[0m\n' # CSI SGR red, reset
printf '\e]0;My Title\e\\' # OSC 0 set title, ESC \ terminatorRelated
- Control Sequences — full family overview.
- CSI, OSC, ESC sequences