Please do not use this tag. The / character ("forward slash", or just "slash") is a directory separator in URLs and in many operating systems including Linux (Windows uses \ (backslash) but many applications and APIs also accept /). It is also the division operator in many languages, and marks closing tags in XML/HTML. In some languages, / characters delimit regular expressions.

The slash character / (sometimes called forward slash to distinguish it from \ backslash) has several common meanings in computing:

  • / is the directory separator in file names filepath on Unix-like and POSIX operating systems, including Linux. Many Windows APIs and applications accept / as a directory (folder) separator, although some require a backslash \ instead. / is also the directory separator in URLs.
  • In many programming languages, / is the division operator division. When applied to integers, / returns the quotient of the division in many languages.
  • In SGML sgml based languages including html and xml, / marks closing tags, as in <b>bold</b> or <br />.
  • / is a common delimiter for regular expressions regex searches (in sed, awk, perl, etc.).