How can I put an actual backslash in a string literal (not use it for an escape sequence)?

user_363661 0
Viewed 85194

I have this code:

import os
path = os.getcwd()
final = path +'\xulrunner.exe ' + path + '\application.ini'
print(final)

I want output like:

C:\Users\me\xulrunner.exe C:\Users\me\application.ini

But instead I get an error that looks like:

SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 0-1: truncated \xXX escape

I don't want the backslashes to be interpreted as escape sequences, but as literal backslashes. How can I do it?

Note that if the string should only contain a backslash - more generally, should have an odd number of backslashes at the end - then raw strings cannot be used. Please use How can I get a string with a single backslash in it? to close questions that are asking for a string with just a backslash in it. Use How to write string literals in python without having to escape them? when the question is specifically about wanting to avoid the need for escape sequences.

rawstring backslash escaping python string
4 Answers
user_143249450

Another simple (and arguably more readable) approach is using string raw format and replacements like so:

import os
path = os.getcwd()
final = r"{0}\xulrunner.exe {0}\application.ini".format(path)
print(final)

or using the os path method (and a microfunction for readability):

import os

def add_cwd(path):
    return os.path.join( os.getcwd(), path )

xulrunner = add_cwd("xulrunner.exe")
inifile = add_cwd("application.ini")
# in production you would use xulrunner+" "+inifile
# but the purpose of this example is to show a version where you could use any character
# including backslash
final = r"{} {}".format( xulrunner, inifile )
print(final)
user_12297360
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