Teletype \textbackslash in alltt environment

Question

The alltt package provides a beefed up verbatim environment where \ and {} are not treated literally. A literal backslash can be inserted with \textbackslash, however, it does not have the same teletype font as the rest of the verbatim text. I tried some variataions such as \texttt{\textbackslash} but these don't seem to help. Any ideas how to insert a backslash (or curly braces) in teletype font when using alltt?

Answer 1

This has nothing to do with alltt. You need T1-encoding. Without it \textbackslash is taken from the symbol font. Check the difference:

\documentclass{article}
%\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}
\ttfamily \textbackslash abc
\end{document}

Answer 2

In addition, you don't have to use T1 font encoding. Default OT1 is enough. In this case symbol \ is not available in roman font family, but it does be available for tyrewriter family.

You can use

\symbol{`\\}

to get \ at any time. If it is available in the font, a backslash should be output properly. You can define a command for it:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{alltt}
\newcommand\bslash{\symbol{`\\}}
\begin{document}

\begin{alltt}
\bslash{}^_^/
\end{alltt}

\end{document}

After all, it is a good manner to use T1 encoding for most documents.

Answer 3

while the suggestions to use a different encoding are good, this technique should work anywhere to get a monospace symbol if it's in the font being used.

preface the input character by

\char`\

so that a backslash, open and close brace would be input as

\char`\\ \char`\{ \char`\}

this is built into TeX itself, not defined by any particular "flavor" such as LaTeX or ConTeXt.

EDIT: the \char command will reference whatever glyph is in the ascii/utf-8/(relevant font encoding) position corresponding to its argument. so only if the backslash (or whatever) is actually in that location in the font will you get the desired shape. my original answer was meant to refer specifically to cmtt10 and other fonts encoded so that the input character exactly matches the glyph in that font location.