As for your second question,

Why in a record with single quotes if that is the case?

You need to escape backslashes (\) and the string delimiter in non-interpolating strings.

print('\\a\'b');  # Prints: \a'b
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For convenience, an exception was made in unambiguous situations. In other words, a backslash only needs to be escaped when it is followed by another blackslash or by the string delimiter.

print('\\\\a');   # Prints: \\a
print('\\\a');    # Prints: \\a
print('\\a');     # Prints: \a
print('\a');      # Prints: \a

print('\\\\\'');  # Prints: \\'
print('\\\\'');   # Syntax error
print('\\\'');    # Prints: \'
print('\\'');     # Syntax error
print('\'');      # Prints: '
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For a program, it's easier to escape backslashes and the string delimiter unconditionally (C:\\Docum...) while humans might opt to omit the optional backslashes for the sake of readability (C:\Docum...).

The returned value (a *string*) doesn't have doubled slashes, just the output of Data::Dumper (a *string literal*).