I would like to include some ASCII art in a doc-string. However, even inside literal blocks, Sphinx seems to interpret \ as the escape sequence. Is there a reStructuredText environment in which the backslash character \ is evaluated literally? I would like to avoid using double backslashes as it then renders correctly in HTML but without rendering, the ASCII art in the raw doc-string is incorrect.
Example 1a: renders correctly to HTML, but incorrect without rendering
The Sierpinski gasket graph (or Sierpinski triangle graph; [1]_,
[2]_) is a self-similar or fractal graph defined recursively over
the positive integers:
1. $S_1$ is simply a triangle.
2. $S_i$ is built by triplicating $S_{i-1}$ and arranging the
three subgraphs in a triangle::
| S_1 --> S_2
|
| 2 2
| / \\ --> / \\
| 0 - 1 0 - 1
| / \\ / \\
| 3 - 4 - 5
Example 1b: renders incorrectly to HTML, but correct without rendering
The Sierpinski gasket graph (or Sierpinski triangle graph; [1]_,
[2]_) is a self-similar or fractal graph defined recursively over
the positive integers:
1. $S_1$ is simply a triangle.
2. $S_i$ is built by triplicating $S_{i-1}$ and arranging the
three subgraphs in a triangle::
| S_1 --> S_2
|
| 2 2
| / \ --> / \
| 0 - 1 0 - 1
| / \ / \
| 3 - 4 - 5
