I am trying replace a backslash '\' in a string with the following code
string = "\B7
"
result = string.replace["\",'']
result:
------------------------------------------------------------
File "", line 1
result = string.replace["\",'']
^
SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal
Here i don't need the back slashes because actually i am parsing an xml file which has a tag in the above format, so if backslashes are there it is displaying invalid token
during parsing
Can i know how to replace the backslashes with empty string in python
asked Sep 27, 2012 at 9:18
0
We need to specify that we want to replace a string that contains a single backslash. We cannot write that as "\"
, because the backslash is escaping the intended closing double-quote. We
also cannot use a raw string literal for this: r"\"
does not work.
Instead, we simply escape the backslash using another backslash:
result = string.replace["\\",""]
answered Sep 27, 2012 at 9:20
0
The error is because you did not add a escape character to your '\'
, you should give \\
for backslash [\]
In [147]: foo = "a\c\d" # example string with backslashes
In [148]: foo
Out[148]: 'a\\c\\d'
In [149]: foo.replace['\\', " "]
Out[149]: 'a c d'
In [150]: foo.replace['\\', ""]
Out[150]: 'acd'
mdoc-2011
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answered Sep 27, 2012 at 9:19
avasalavasal
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1
In Python, as explained in the documentation:
The backslash [] character is used to escape characters that otherwise have a special meaning, such as newline, backslash itself, or the quote character.
So, in order to replace \
in a string, you need to escape the backslash itself with another backslash, thus:
>>> "this is a \ I want to replace".replace["\\", "?"]
'this is a ? I want to replace'
answered Sep 27, 2012 at 9:27
Pierre GMPierre GM
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1
Using regular expressions:
import re
new_string = re.sub["\\\\", "", old_string]
The trick here is that "\\\\"
is a string literal describing a string containing
two backslashes [each one is escaped], then the regex engine compiles that into a pattern that will match one backslash [doing a separate layer of unescaping].
answered Aug 5, 2020 at 21:09
Adding a solution if string='abcd\nop.png'
result = string.replace["\\",""]
This above won't work as it'll give result='abcd\nop.png'
.
Here if you see \n
is a newline character. So we have to replace backslah char in raw string[as there '\n' won't be detected]
string.encode['unicode_escape']
result = string.replace["\\", ""]
#result=abcdnop.png
answered Jul 20, 2020 at 12:34
valeriyanvaleriyan
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1
You need to escape '\' with one extra
backslash to compare actually with \
.. So you should use '\'..
See Python Documentation - section 2.4 for all the escape sequences
in Python.. And how you should handle them..
answered Sep 27, 2012 at 9:28
Rohit JainRohit Jain
205k43 gold badges399 silver badges515 bronze badges
It's August 2020.
Python 3.8.1
Pandas
1.1.0
At this point in time I used both the double \ backslash AND the r.
df.replace[[r'\\'], [''], regex=True, inplace=True]
Cheers.
answered Aug 15, 2020 at 1:10