unnecessaryEscapes

Reports unnecessary escape sequences in string literals and template strings.

✅ This rule is included in the ts stylistic presets.

Escape sequences in JavaScript strings serve specific purposes like representing special characters (\n, \t) or characters that are difficult to type directly. However, many characters don’t need escaping, and unnecessary escapes reduce code readability without providing any benefit.

Examples

Unnecessary Letter Escapes

❌ Incorrect

const message = "\a\d\e";

✅ Correct

const message = "ade";

Unnecessary Symbol Escapes

❌ Incorrect

const pattern = "\[\]";

✅ Correct

const pattern = "[]";

Valid Escape Sequences

✅ Correct

const newline = "\n";
const tab = "\t";
const unicode = "\u00A9";
const hex = "\xA9";
const backslash = "\\";

Template Literals

❌ Incorrect

const template = `prefix \@ suffix`;

✅ Correct

const template = `prefix @ suffix`;

Options

This rule is not configurable.

When Not To Use It

If you have legacy code with many unnecessary escapes and refactoring would be too costly, you may disable this rule. However, the rule provides automatic fixes that make cleanup straightforward.

Further Reading

• MDN: Escape sequences
• MDN: String literals

Equivalents in Other Linters

• Biome: noUselessEscapeInRegexnoUselessEscapeInString
• ESLint: no-useless-escape