Backslash escapes the character coming after it, if that's the end of the line, you basically "remove" the newline. Watch out to not have any spaces or other characters after the backslash, just the newline!
# In general $ echo "foo" \ > "bar" foo bar # Pipes $ echo foo | > cat foo # && and || $ echo foo && > echo bar foo bar $ false || > echo bar bar
(source)