Why when i add \ to cout it dosent display it on output

When I try to do printf("----/");, the \ is removed from the output

#include <iostream>

int main() {
    std::cout << ("Welcome to the game\n\n");

    printf("--------\n");
    printf("----O---\n");
    printf("---/|\--\n");
    printf("---/-\--\n");
}

output:

--------
----0---
---/|--
---/---

>Solution :

The answer has been given already: \ is special, because it’s the escape character, and you need to escape it with itself if you want a literal \ in the outoupt.

This, however, can make the drawing confused.

To improve the things, you can use raw strings literals

    printf(R"(--------\n)");
    printf(R"(----O---\n)");
    printf(R"(---/|\--\n)");
    printf(R"(---/-\--\n)");

Clearly, you can still have issues, if a string contains exactly the characters )", because it will be detected as the closing token of the string:

//               +---- code invalid from here
//               |
//               v
printf(R"(-----)"---\n)");

but you can still solve it, for instance by adding another set of wrapping "s:

printf(R""(-----)"---\n)"");

or anything else in between the " and (, and between ) and " (not symmetrized):

printf(R"xyz(-----)"---\n)xyz");
//                        ^
//                        |
//                        +--- not zyx