# What's with the backslashes at the start of words in YAML doc files?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-with-the-backslashes-at-the-start-of-words-in-yaml-doc-files/154409>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [November 28, 2008, 10:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-with-the-backslashes-at-the-start-of-words-in-yaml-doc-files/154409 "2008-11-28T22:16:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![epasquier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/2bfe46/32.png) [@epasquier](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/epasquier)\
**Post date:** [November 28, 2008, 10:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/whats-with-the-backslashes-at-the-start-of-words-in-yaml-doc-files/154409/1 "2008-11-28T22:16:12Z")

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The problem:

Files like  
/gems1.8/doc/actionpack-2.2.2/ri/ActionController/  
AbstractRequest/content\_type-i.yaml

contain text like this:

body: For backward compatibility, the post \format is extracted …

What’s with the backslash at the start of “format”?

I’m pulling out any backslashes that match /\s\\w/, but I’m wondering  
what  
the backslash is for. [yaml.org](http://yaml.org) has been down all day.

Thanks,  
Eric