Python How to put "\" in a string

Question

I wanted to find the character \ in a string but this also happens to be the character for escaping so when i use string1.find("\") it doesn't work due to the backslash not letting the " close off the string.

If I add a trailing space, the error is fixed, however then it will not find just the backslash.

How can I put the backslash character \ inside a string can still close it.

well kinda yeah, but then the string has an extra backslash which I dont want — john hon, Jan 07 '17 at 07:42
Could you show an example of what you are trying to achieve? — Taufiq Rahman, Jan 07 '17 at 07:44
@johnhon it doesn't have extra backslash. it just displayed to you that way. try this '\\hello'[0] and '\\hello'[1] — bman, Jan 07 '17 at 07:44
@bman yeah thats great, I dont want to print it, i want to use the find command on it and if i do "\\" then it will try and find "\\" NOT "\". I have already tried that — john hon, Jan 07 '17 at 07:45
whats with the downvote? what am i doing wrong? sure its a short question but i dont think that such a simple question needs a long post — john hon, Jan 07 '17 at 07:46
Nope. `string1.find("\\")` will search `string1` for a single, literal backslash. — TigerhawkT3, Jan 07 '17 at 07:46
@johnhon can you show a bit of code? if you search for '\\' it actually only search for one backslash! — bman, Jan 07 '17 at 07:47
@TigerhawkT3 perhaps i am doing somthing wrong, but this is producing -1 : `str = "\afds" print str.find("\\")` — john hon, Jan 07 '17 at 07:49
You have to escape the backslash in `str`, too (and name it something else, or you'll have trouble accessing the built-in function `str`), e.g. `my_string = '\\afds'`. — TigerhawkT3, Jan 07 '17 at 07:51
`\a` has special meaning - so it is not treated as two chars: \ and `a` — furas, Jan 07 '17 at 07:53

Martin Bonner supports Monica · Answer 1 · 2017-01-07T07:51:26.257

The way to write a string literal containing a single backslash (and nothing else) is '\\'.

This works in just the same way as '\'' is a string literal containing one single quote (and nothing else). \ + char => a single character. What is confusing you is that if the character is not one of the recognized escaping characters (' " n \, etc) then both the backslash and the character are left in the string.

C:\>python Python 3.4.2 (v3.4.2:ab2c023a9432, Oct  6 2014, 22:16:31)
[MSC v.1600 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> '\\'
'\\'
>>> '\ '
'\\ '
>>>

Note how the second string is displayed with the backslash escaped.

Python How to put "\" in a string

1 Answers1