How do I enter a new line/move to the next line without executing command while in a shell or bash if the command has more than 1 line?

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so i'm trying to follow a tutorial on creating an Azure VM and the entire tutorial is from the CLI. It is specifically using bash. I know next to nothing about using CLI so it is pretty intimdating. Anyways all the commands look like this in the tutorial:

az vm create \
  --resource-group myResourceGroup \
  --name myVM \
  --image UbuntuLTS \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --generate-ssh-keys

But when I try to make a new line and go to that new line to enter in the argument/parameter it keeps trying to execute the command and i cant execute anything since obviously what im typing in is missing parameters:

az vm create \ --resource-group ShahVMAzureUB \ --name ShahVM \ --imageUbuntuLTS \ --admin-username shahjacob \ --generate-ssh-keysaz vm create
: error: the following arguments are required: --name/-n, --resource-group/-g
azure command-line-interface terminal linux bash
5 Answers

Quoteth the bash man page

If a \<newline> pair appears, and the backslash is not itself quoted, the \<newline> is treated as a line continuation (that is, it is removed from the input stream and effectively ignored).

So, you literally need a newline (press ENTER) after you type the \ to tell the shell you want to enter more parameters but on a separate line.

Generally this is used for print (or even Stackoverflow answers) so you don't have one mega-line that's hard to grok. If you want it all on one line, remove the \ between the parameters.

user_2072480

To expand on SiegeX's answer (since I don't have enough rep to comment...)

az vm create \ 
  --resource-group myResourceGroup \
  --name myVM \
  --image UbuntuLTS \
  --admin-username azureuser \
  --generate-ssh-keys

is functionally equivalent to 

az vm create --resource-group myResourceGroup --name myVM --image UbuntuLTS --admin-username azureuser --generate-ssh-keys
user_93706710

For printing the ENTER in cmd we have to use the echo. command instead of echo "\n" or echo '\n'

user_97940960

Use backtick -(key to the left of q ~ (tilde) and )

and not the '- Apostrophe or single quote.

user_181280050

Just need to use a backtick ` instead of the \

Your code should look like this:

az vm create ` 
  --resource-group myResourceGroup `
  --name myVM `
  --image UbuntuLTS `
  --admin-username azureuser `
  --generate-ssh-keys
user_199591030
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