While loop is not reading a '\' from a file in shell script

Question

I am trying to read a line in a file which has '\' in it. But it is not showing in output, please help me what is the reason behind and how to read it.

Ex: File has this data:

abc
abc\def

but while loop took the second line as 'abcdef'

Answer 1

You can use the -r option. E.g in bash:

while read -r l; do 
  echo "$f"; 
done < yourfile

Answer 2

\ (backslash ) is an escape character . If possible use abc\\def instead of abc\def

Or use -r in your shell script as mentioned in the SO thread

sh read command eats slashes in input?