Removing continuation characters in the middle of a string in Python

Question

The standard return value from the Google maps API looks like this - after conversion from bytes to a string:

b'{\n   "destination_addresses" : [ "Washington, DC, USA" ],\n   "origin_addresses" : [ "New York, NY, USA" ],\n   "rows" : [\n      {\n         "elements" : [\n            {\n               "distance" : {\n                  "text" : "370 km",\n                  "value" : 369720\n               },\n               "duration" : {\n                  "text" : "3 hours 48 mins",\n                  "value" : 13672\n               },\n               "status" : "OK"\n            }\n         ]\n      }\n   ],\n   "status" : "OK"\n}\n'

In order to process is any further, I would like to remove all the line break characters first. However, I don't know how to do it

results_str.replace('\n', "")

won't work, .i.e., it returns the same string without replacing the '\n's, because of the line continuation character.

Same thing happens when I double the backslash

results_str.replace('\\n', "")

Any tips?

What do you mean with "won't work"? If I do `str.replace("\n", "")`, it returns the same string without all the `\n`s — jazzpi, Apr 14 '13 at 16:27
Based on how the matter was resolved, the problem isn't anything to do with string escaping, but was simply failing to understand that `.replace` *creates a new string*. Closed as an appropriate duplicate. (Recommend deletion, because this makes very little sense as a signpost.) — Karl Knechtel, Aug 06 '22 at 01:15

kindall · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-14T16:30:35.620

15

results_str.replace('\n', "")

You're so close. The \ is an escape character in string literals, so you must either double it up, or use a raw string:

results_str.replace('\\n', "") 
results_str.replace(r'\n', "")

Also remember that Python strings are immutable: replace() returns a new string, because the existing string cannot be modified. If you want to keep the changed string, you have to assign it to some name, such as the original name:

results_str = results_str.replace(r'\n', "")

Although you may want to process your data in a fashion that doesn't care about the newlines. That looks like JSON, so rather than trying to parse it yourself you should probably be using the Python json module.

edited Apr 14 '13 at 16:30

answered Apr 14 '13 at 16:25

kindall

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Thanks for the comment. I tried the doubling before: `results_str.replace('\\n', "")`, but for some reason it doesn't work. I will take a look at the JSON module – Apr 14 '13 at 16:30
Wait, are you not reassigning the result back to `results_str`? I'll add some stuff about that. – kindall Apr 14 '13 at 16:31
@bluewoodtree: Do you do `results_str = results_str.replace('\\n', "")`? – jazzpi Apr 14 '13 at 16:33
omg. I am sorry, it's too early in the morning...embarrassing...vote me down and close this question... But thanks for the JSON recommendations, it looks very convenient – Apr 14 '13 at 16:35

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 14 '13 at 16:31

1

This is a JSON response. Instead of trying to mess with the string, you should use the json module to parse the string:

import json
result = b'{\n   "destination_addresses" : ...'
obj = json.loads(obj.decode('utf-8'))

answered Apr 14 '13 at 16:31

mata

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Removing continuation characters in the middle of a string in Python

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