Unicode escapes

Write any character by codepoint (\x[…]) or by its Unicode name (\c[…]).

Inside a double-quoted string you can name any character two ways: \x[…] by hexadecimal codepoint, and \c[…] by its official Unicode name. Both produce the actual character.

By codepoint — \x[…] #

say "\x[41]\x[42]";
say "\x[3B1]";

AB
α

\x[41] is A (U+0041); \x[3B1] is α (U+03B1).

By name — \c[…] #

\c[NAME] inserts the character with that Unicode name — self-documenting for characters you can't easily type.

say "\c[LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH ACUTE]";

é

Notes #

• \x[…] takes hex; the older \x41 (no brackets) works for short codes too, and \o[…] takes octal.
• \c[…] also accepts a control-character name (\c[TAB]) and multiple comma-separated names in one escape.
• The uniname method is the inverse — it gives a character's Unicode name; see Unicode & graphemes.