ending a string with a backslash

[John Salerno]

I have this:

subdomain = raw_input('Enter subdomain name: ')

path = r'C:\Documents and Settings\John Salerno\My Documents\My
Webs\1and1\johnjsalerno.com\' + subdomain

Obviously the single backslash at the end of 'path' will cause a
problem, and escaping it with a backslash seems to fix this problem, but
how does escaping work when I already have it as a raw string? When I
test it out and then print string, I get something like this:

C:\Documents and Settings\John Salerno\My Documents\My
Webs\1and1\johnjsalerno.com\\test

But I don't see how this is valid, since all the backslashes are single
(which is correct) except the last one. Somehow this still works when I
tried to create the new directory -- os.mkdir(path) -- but I wasn't sure
if this is the right way to go about it, or if there is some other,
better way to handle the final backslash.

[Edward Elliott]

John Salerno wrote:

Obviously the single backslash at the end of 'path' will cause a
problem, and escaping it with a backslash seems to fix this problem, but
how does escaping work when I already have it as a raw string?

see the first two items here:
http://www.ferg.org/projects/python_gotchas.html

[Terry Reedy]

"John Salerno" <jo******@NOSPAMgmail.com> wrote in message
news:44**********************@news.astraweb.com...

I have this:

subdomain = raw_input('Enter subdomain name: ')

path = r'C:\Documents and Settings\John Salerno\My Documents\My
Webs\1and1\johnjsalerno.com\' + subdomain

For any direct use of paths within Python (to open a file, change
directory, etc), forward slashes work fine, avoiding backslash problems.

tjr

[John Salerno]

Edward Elliott wrote:

John Salerno wrote:

Obviously the single backslash at the end of 'path' will cause a
problem, and escaping it with a backslash seems to fix this problem, but
how does escaping work when I already have it as a raw string?

see the first two items here:
http://www.ferg.org/projects/python_gotchas.html

#2 was very helpful. But if I want to use forward slashes instead, can I
just replace the backslashes with them, or must I use the
os.path.normcase() function to do it?

[Dan Bishop]

John Salerno wrote:

I have this:

subdomain = raw_input('Enter subdomain name: ')

path = r'C:\Documents and Settings\John Salerno\My Documents\My
Webs\1and1\johnjsalerno.com\' + subdomain

Obviously the single backslash at the end of 'path' will cause a
problem, and escaping it with a backslash seems to fix this problem, but
how does escaping work when I already have it as a raw string? When I
test it out and then print string, I get something like this:

C:\Documents and Settings\John Salerno\My Documents\My
Webs\1and1\johnjsalerno.com\\test

But I don't see how this is valid, since all the backslashes are single
(which is correct) except the last one. Somehow this still works when I
tried to create the new directory -- os.mkdir(path) -- but I wasn't sure
if this is the right way to go about it, or if there is some other,
better way to handle the final backslash.

As others have stated, you can use a forward slash. Alternatively, you
can write:

r'This\string\contains\backslashes' '\\'

'This\\string\\contains\\backslashes\\'

[Roel Schroeven]

John Salerno schreef:

Edward Elliott wrote:

John Salerno wrote:

Obviously the single backslash at the end of 'path' will cause a
problem, and escaping it with a backslash seems to fix this problem, but
how does escaping work when I already have it as a raw string?

see the first two items here:
http://www.ferg.org/projects/python_gotchas.html

#2 was very helpful. But if I want to use forward slashes instead, can I
just replace the backslashes with them, or must I use the
os.path.normcase() function to do it?

You can just replace them: all internal Windows functions accept forward
slashed instead of backslashes in path names.

I think this is also the right time to mention os.path.join. It takes
any number of path components and joins them, taking care of placing
path delimiters between them. That means you could have written your
code as follows:

path = os.path.join(r'C:\Documents and Settings\John Salerno\My
Documents\My Webs\1and1\johnjsalerno.com', subdomain)

It also handles the case where there is a trailing backslash:

os.path.join('foo', 'bar') 'foo\\bar' os.path.join('foo\\', 'bar')

'foo\\bar'

Greatly simplifies concatenating path components IMO.

--
If I have been able to see further, it was only because I stood
on the shoulders of giants. -- Isaac Newton

Roel Schroeven

[John Salerno]

Roel Schroeven wrote:

I think this is also the right time to mention os.path.join.

Yeah, I ended up using this and it looks a lot nicer too. :)