# Escaping characters

By default, searches use
[RE2 regular expressions](https://github.com/google/re2/wiki/Syntax).
To escape characters so they aren't treated as part of a regular expression,
use the `\` character. For example, the following example searches for the term
`main.java`.

    main\.java

For more information see [Additional syntax options](https://developers.google.com/code-search/reference#syntax-options)
in the reference documentation.