# prefer-literal-ascii

📝 Prefer literal printable ASCII characters over escape sequences.

💼 This rule is enabled in the following [configs](https://github.com/sindresorhus/eslint-plugin-unicorn#recommended-config): ✅ `recommended`, 🎨 `recommended-css`, 🧩 `recommended-json`, 💎 `recommended-soml`, ☑️ `unopinionated`.

🔧 This rule is automatically fixable by the [`--fix` CLI option](https://eslint.org/docs/latest/user-guide/command-line-interface#--fix).

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Prefer literal printable ASCII (U+0020–U+007E) over numeric escapes in JavaScript strings and untagged templates, in JSON, JSONC, and JSON5 strings and quoted keys, and in CSS strings and identifiers. This covers each language's valid `\xXX`, `\uXXXX`, and `\u{X…}` escapes, plus CSS hexadecimal escapes. Quotes, backslashes, and template delimiters stay escaped when needed.

In JSON, JSONC, and JSON5, `\/` becomes `/`. For `\/` in JavaScript, use ESLint's [`no-useless-escape`](https://eslint.org/docs/latest/rules/no-useless-escape). Tagged templates, regex literals, and JSX attribute strings are ignored. Use [`prefer-unicode-code-point-escapes`](prefer-unicode-code-point-escapes.md) for other legacy escapes.

In untagged templates, escaped spaces (`\u{20}`) at physical line endings are allowed to keep trailing whitespace visible and prevent editor trimming. They may be mixed with literal spaces or tabs.

Autofix is omitted for directive prologues, digits that would extend a preceding `\0` or legacy octal escape, and TypeScript template literal types without substitutions when they contain a literal backslash. In HTML-embedded content, making `<` or `/` literal may affect HTML parsing.

In CSS, this rule checks quoted strings and identifiers for one- to six-digit hexadecimal escapes. Escape-terminating whitespace is removed with the escape. Identifier escapes are reported and fixed only when the resulting tokens have the same values and types. Comments and `url()` values are ignored. An initial `@charset` statement is also ignored because its literal bytes can determine the stylesheet encoding.

In SOML, this rule checks escaped single-line strings and quoted keys. Literal keys and literal or block strings are ignored.

## Examples

```css
/* ❌ */
.\41 { content: "\42"; }

/* ✅ */
.A { content: "B"; }
```

```js
// ❌
const letter = '\x41';
const word = '\u0042\u{43}';
const template = `\u0024\u007Bvalue}`;

// ✅
const letter = 'A';
const word = 'BC';
const template = `\${value}`;
```