How does one escape backticks in markdown?

Question

I am writing some documentation in markdown and I want to document how to create a text file using a bash HEREDOC. Here is the command I want to document:

# cat > /tmp/answers.txt <<EOT
> value1=blah
> value2=something else
> value3=`hostname`
> value4=onetwothree
EOT

In markdown one uses the ` to render the text as "code" I have tried doing this ...

`# cat > /tmp/answers.txt <<EOT`
`> value1=blah`
`> value2=something else`
`> value3=\`hostname\``
`> value4=onetwothree`
`EOT`

... but that results in something that looks like this ...

# cat > /tmp/answers.txt <<EOT
> value1=blah
> value2=something else
> value3=\

hostname
> value4=onetwothree
EOT

Answer 1

The original Markdown syntax documentation covers this; it says that you have to use multiple backticks to bracket the code expression, so like this:

``here you go - ` this was a backtick``

renders like this:

here you go - ` this was a backtick

If you want to include a backtick in normal text, not in a code block, a backslash escape does the trick; for example this:

Here's a backtick: \`; then, here's another one: \`

renders like this:

Here's a backtick: `; then, here's another one: `

(I tested this on commonmark and github and it behaves the same so it's not just a Stack Overflow oddity)