17.2. Entering code and text with special characters

Special characters such as *, | and #, and HTML characters such as <</literal>, <literal>> and & can be escaped with \:

        You can write down equations like 2\*3\=6 and HTML tags
        like \<body\> using the escape character: \\.

<p> 
  You can write down equations like 2*3=6 and HTML tags
  like &lt;body&gt; using the escape character: \. 
</p>

And we can quote code blocks with backticks:

        My code doesn't work:

        `for (int i=0; i<100; i--)
        {
        doSomething();
        }`

        Any ideas?

<p>
  My code doesn't work:
</p>

<pre>for (int i=0; i&lt;100; i--)
{
    doSomething();
}</pre>

<p>
  Any ideas?
</p>

Since most monospace-formatted text is either code, or involves special characters, inline monospace formatting always escapes. So, you can write:

This is a |<tag attribute="value"/>| example.

without escaping any of the characters inside the monospace bars. This also means that inline monospace text cannot be formatted in any other way.