What are the Java semantics of an escaped number in a character literal, e.g. '\15' ?

Question

Please explain what, exactly, happens when the following sections of code are executed:

int a=\'\\15\';
System.out.println(a);

this prints

Answer 1

The fact that you put the digits in quotes makes me suspect it is interpreting the number as a character literal. The digits that follow must be in octal.