RE: Beginner trouble with regexp matching

[Drew Adams]

> is there some table which tells what should I type in 
> Emacs to put in such nontrivial characters (newline,
> carriage return, backspace, tab, etc...)?

Depends on the mode.  In some modes such chars are self-inserting.

But you can always quote to insert any character, with `C-q': See this node of
the Emacs manual: (emacs) `Inserting Text'.  (See also these nodes: `Minibuffer
Edit', `International Chars', `Indentation Commands', `Pages', `TeX Editing',
and `Init Non-ASCII'.)