Why use "\ t" instead of "<press TAB>" for strings?

Question

I just tried to compile some C ++ code that used the alphabetic character Tab (like I pressed a key TABon my keyboard) inside the line. And, to my surprise, it is well composed. Looking back, I suggest that this makes sense, as it is a character, like any other.

cout << "Tab: [TAB]";

So far, I have always used \tto define tabs in strings.

cout << "Tab: [\t]";

Obviously, code that uses a literal TABin strings will suffer greatly in readability, but is there a technical reason to use \tbesides the convention?

Answer 1

\t ?

, .

cout << "Tab: [\t]";

.

, , . UTF8 , EBCDIC .
'\t' , .

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, merlin2011 comment, IDE TAB .