diff --git a/src/ast_render.cpp b/src/ast_render.cpp
index 76a0622058..84a952fa99 100644
--- a/src/ast_render.cpp
+++ b/src/ast_render.cpp
@@ -317,7 +317,7 @@ static bool is_digit(uint8_t c) {
 
 static bool is_printable(uint8_t c) {
     static const uint8_t printables[] =
-        " abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789.~`!@#$%^&*()_-+=\\{}[];'\"?/<>,";
+        " abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789.~`!@#$%^&*()_-+=\\{}[];'\"?/<>,:";
     for (size_t i = 0; i < array_length(printables); i += 1) {
         if (c == printables[i]) return true;
     }
@@ -328,9 +328,7 @@ static void string_literal_escape(Buf *source, Buf *dest) {
     buf_resize(dest, 0);
     for (size_t i = 0; i < buf_len(source); i += 1) {
         uint8_t c = *((uint8_t*)buf_ptr(source) + i);
-        if (is_printable(c)) {
-            buf_append_char(dest, c);
-        } else if (c == '\'') {
+        if (c == '\'') {
             buf_append_str(dest, "\\'");
         } else if (c == '"') {
             buf_append_str(dest, "\\\"");
@@ -350,6 +348,8 @@ static void string_literal_escape(Buf *source, Buf *dest) {
             buf_append_str(dest, "\\t");
         } else if (c == '\v') {
             buf_append_str(dest, "\\v");
+        } else if (is_printable(c)) {
+            buf_append_char(dest, c);
         } else {
             buf_appendf(dest, "\\x%x", (int)c);
         }
diff --git a/src/cache_hash.cpp b/src/cache_hash.cpp
index cd336b71ae..6c9cf12962 100644
--- a/src/cache_hash.cpp
+++ b/src/cache_hash.cpp
@@ -472,10 +472,11 @@ Error cache_add_dep_file(CacheHash *ch, Buf *dep_file_path, bool verbose) {
             }
         } else {
             // sometimes there are multiple files on the same line; we actually need space tokenization.
-            SplitIterator line_it = memSplit(opt_line.value, str(" \t\\"));
+            SplitIterator line_it = memSplit(opt_line.value, str(" \t"));
             Slice<uint8_t> filename;
             while (SplitIterator_next(&line_it).unwrap(&filename)) {
                 Buf *filename_buf = buf_create_from_slice(filename);
+                if (buf_eql_str(filename_buf, "\\")) continue;
                 if ((err = cache_add_file(ch, filename_buf))) {
                     if (verbose) {
                         fprintf(stderr, "unable to add %s to cache: %s\n", buf_ptr(filename_buf), err_str(err));