hi how can i sucessfully print |\| in the output of a print command a = "|\|" print a but it gives me "|\\|" i tried raw strings too, but it doesn't print |\| . It prints |\\| instead eventually, i also want |\| to be inside a list: alist = ["|\|", 'blah', 'blah'] . How can i put |\| inside a list? can someone show me how it can be done? thanks