backslash at the beginning of a command

Question

In Installing RVM manual I see a lot of lines starting with '\':

Install RVM with ruby:

$ \curl -L https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --ruby

I'd think it is just mistype but they repeat it many times.

So what is the reason?

Answer 1

There's no error, it's a little hack to avoid using a curl shell alias if any exists.

This works too :

'curl' (...)
"curl" (...)
/usr/bin/curl (...)
command curl (...)
command -p curl (...)

Answer 2

A command preceded by a slash temporarily disables any aliases for the command.

Bash Shell Temporarily Disable an Alias