Spectral Python代码行尾反斜杠的作用（非字符串转义）

我同时自学多领域知识，虽可能存在问题，但通过同时使用并理解库源码的方式学习。在Spectral Python库中看到如下unmix函数，我能理解该函数的linear unmixing逻辑（基于有限的线性代数知识），但搞不懂assert members.shape[1] == data.shape[2], \这一行末尾的\字符的作用，这场景又不是字符串转义。

def unmix(data, members):
    '''
    Perform linear unmixing on image data.

    USAGE: mix = unmix(data, members)

    ARGUMENTS:
        data                The MxNxB image data to be unmixed
        members             An CxB array of C endmembers
    RETURN VALUE:
        mix                 An MxNxC array of endmember fractions.

    unmix performs linear unmixing on the image data.  After calling the
    function, mix[:,:,i] will then represent the fractional abundances
    for the i'th endmember. If the result of unmix is returned into 'mix',
    then an array of indices of greatest fractional endmembers is obtained
    by argmax(mix).

    Note that depending on endmembers given, fractional abundances for
    endmembers may be negative.
    '''
    assert members.shape[1] == data.shape[2], \
        'Matrix dimensions are not aligned.'

    members = members.astype(float)
    # Calculate the pseudo inverse
    pi = np.dot(members, np.transpose(members))
    pi = np.dot(np.linalg.inv(pi), members) #hacked by rr, bug report sent

    (M, N, B) = data.shape
    unmixed = np.zeros((M, N, members.shape[0]), float)
    for i in range(M):
        for j in range(N):
            unmixed[i, j] = np.dot(pi, data[i, j].astype(float))
    return unmixed

这是Python里的行续行符，作用是把原本要写在一行的代码拆成多行排版，让代码看起来更整洁易读。

具体到这个场景：assert语句的完整语法是assert 条件表达式, 错误提示信息，这里把条件和错误提示分成了两行，末尾的\告诉Python“这行代码还没结束，下一行是同一语句的延续”，这样Python就会把两行内容合并成一条完整的assert语句来执行，不会把第二行的错误提示当成独立的代码行。

内容的提问来源于stack exchange，提问作者russj