multiline raw input

[les ander]

Hi,
i have a program that takes input from the command line
however this input is multi-line and will have a lot of backslashes
I tried using sys.stdin but it ignores the backslashes.
i tried with raw_input but that only takes in the first line

can some suggest a remedy?




for example: 
i would like to run my program as follows:

>> myprog.py 
Type in some input (type in '.' to end) :
\sum_{i=1}^{n} \frac{\sqrt{2}}{\alpha} \infty
\begin{itemize}
\item this equation says that 
\end{itemize}
.




thanks