How to escape "" in a mapping in vimscript

Question

I want to construct a command line within a mapping, using the `:execute normal "commandstring"` techinique. But I can't do it from within a mapping as vim immediately interprets the "" as a keypress. So this doesn't work: ``` nnoremap jj :execute "normal :tabnew foo.txt\" ``` I tried doubly escaping the backslash, to no effect: ``` nnoremap jj :execute "normal :tabnew foo.txt\" ``` Now vim types in the backslash and then interprets the as a keypress. Any way out of this?

Accepted Answer

That's indeed tricky. You have to escape the `<` character as ``, so that the `` is not parsed as special key notation: ``` nnoremap jj :execute "normal :tabnew foo.txt\cr>" ``` Note that your example doesn't need any of this; `:normal :...` is the same as `...` ``` nnoremap jj :tabnew foo.txt ```

How to escape "<CR>" in a mapping in vimscript

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