in reply to Looking for backslashed characters
String::Escape seems to do what you ask.
-p
print printable( "\tNow is the time\nfor all good folks\n" ); \tNow is the time\nfor all good folks\n
tested code:
#!/usr/bin/perl -w use String::Escape qw( printable ) ; open(FILE," text.txt"); while(<FILE>){ print printable($_); } close(FILE);
-p
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