Re: r"<path>"

On Tue, 30 Sep 2008 10:50:01 -0700, Kyle Hayes wrote:

Please describe the actual problem you're trying to solve. In what way
do slashes need to be "fixed," and why?

Well, I have decided to build a tool to help us sync files in UNC paths.
I am just building the modules and classes right now so I haven't
developed the frontend yet. I am assuming when the user provides a path
(either by typing it in, or pulling it in from a config file), the UNC
slashes are going to escape stuff in the string, so I want to double
them up.

I understand if the best way is to convert all the slashes to double-
slashes. But the 'r' function seemed so handy and convenient.

You don't need to. Python's string is never escaped in-memory, it is only
escaped when repr(s) is called (the interpreter's implicit print uses repr
() instead of str()). And that means all string coming and going to/from
IO (file, GUI, etc) is stored as-is. However, strings that comes from
source code or interpreter prompt (a.k.a. literal string) needs to be
escaped.

Analogy: When you're writing a string in the source code, you add double
quotes (""), right? But do you think the quotes are stored in memory? No,
it's just an escape character to differentiate a string from its
surrounding.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Unrecognized escape sequences in string literals
    ... If you don't know what your string literals are, ... Adding escape codes into the string literal doesn't change this ... extra effort required to defeat the compiler (forcing the programmer to ... And if you saw that in Python, you'd also know that there are some ...
    (comp.lang.python)
  • Re: Unrecognized escape sequences in string literals
    ... need worry that I've misinterpreted what a string literal means. ... You can't expect the compiler to save you from ... Adding escape codes into the string literal doesn't ... (This behavior is useful when debugging: if an escape sequence is ...
    (comp.lang.python)
  • Re: replace single slash with double slash
    ... but it seems to be very difficult replacing slashes. ... you must write each slash twice because of php escaping rules. ... These file paths are coming from a database, ... This doesn't matter where the string comes from. ...
    (comp.lang.php)
  • Re: problems with opening files due to files path
    ... GUI or it is a console app. ... of what an escape character and escape sequence is. ... character) inside a string specially, it makes the character after the ...
    (comp.lang.python)
  • Re: Unrecognized escape sequences in string literals
    ... if he could just look at the string literal and know. ... friend is a programmer. ... If you don't know what a backslash escape is going to do, ... That's an enormous difference from Python, ...
    (comp.lang.python)