Strings in Java are always encoded in UTF-16, so it uses a Unicode escape: \u0048. Octal characters are supported as well: \110
\u0048
\110
Note that Unicode escapes are parsed quite early. It can come as a surprise when
String s = "text\u000d\u000a";
causes a compiler error because you should have used "text\015\012" or "text\r\n"
"text\015\012"
"text\r\n"