PowerShell uses a tick as a multipurpose escaped character.
A tick may be used as a line continuation character. Consider the following example:
'one' -replace 'o', 't' ` -replace 'n', 'w' ` -replace 'e', 'o'
When using a tick to split a long statement across several lines, the tick must be the last character (it cannot be followed by a space or any other character).
A tick is used to construct several characters that can be used in strings:
Description | String | ASCII character code |
Null |
`0 | 0 |
Bell sound |
`a | 7 |
Backspace |
`b | 8 |
New page form feed |
`f | 12 |
Line feed |
`n | 10 |
Carriage return |
`r | 13 |
Horizontal tab |
`t | 9 |
Vertical tab |
`v | 11 |
The tab character, for example, may be included in a string:
PS> Write-Host "First`tSecond" First Second
Alternatively, the bell sound may be played in the PowerShell console (but not ISE):
Write-Host "`a"