Escape for str in Python

Question

Wow, this should be so simple, but it\' just not working. I need to inset a \"\\\" into a string (for a Bash command), but escaping just doesn\'t work.

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Answer 1

'tes\\ting' is correct, but you are viewing the repr output for the string, which will always show escape characters.

>>> print 'tes\\ting'
tes\ting

Answer 2

You are being misled by Python's output. Try:

>>> a = "test\\ing"
>>> print(a)
test\ing
>>> print(repr(a))
'test\\ing'
>>> a
'test\\ing'

Answer 3

If you want double slashes because the shell will escape \ again, use a raw string:

b = a[:3] + r'\\' + a[3:]

Answer 4

The second example is correct. There are two slashes because you are printing the Python representation of the string.

If you want to see the actual string, call print a.

Answer 5

b is fine in the second example, you see two slashes because you're printing the representation of b, so slashes are escaped in it too.

>>> b
'tes\\ting'
>>> print b
tes\ting
>>> 

Answer 6

Python's quoting the backslash again when it shows you the representation of the string (in such a way that you could paste it in and get the string with an escaped backslash).

If you print the string, you'll see there's only one in the actual string.

>>> print "hello\\world"
hello\world