Why are Python strings behaving funny?

Question

I'm so confused... why/how is a different from b?! Why don't they print the same thing?

>>> a = '"'
>>> a
'"'
>>> b = "'"
>>> b
"'"

@MartijnPieters It's not. The first string is comprised of a double quote, whereas the second string is comprised of a single quote. Clearly, ' and " are not equal. — phant0m
– phant0m, Commented Dec 6, 2012 at 9:02
Mehrdad, I do not understand the question, the strings are different, why should they print the same thing? — phant0m
– phant0m, Commented Dec 6, 2012 at 9:03
@phant0m: yeah, was not paying attention to that part. I thought everyone was talking about the quoting presentation not being different. :-P — Martijn Pieters
– Martijn Pieters, Commented Dec 6, 2012 at 9:03

Martijn Pieters · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-06 09:03:07Z

5

The strings are not presented differently. Their presentation is just adjusted to avoid having to quote the contained quote. Both ' and " are legal string literal delimiters.

Note that the contents of the string are very different. " is not the same string as '; a == b is (patently) False.

Python would have to use a \ backslash for the " or ' character otherwise. If you use both characters in a string, then python is forced to use quoting:

>>> '\'"'
'\'"'
>>> """Tripple quoted means you can use both without escaping them: "'"""
'Tripple quoted means you can use both without escaping them: "\''

As you can see, the string representation used by Python still uses single quotes and a backslash to represent that last string.

edited Dec 6, 2012 at 9:03

answered Dec 6, 2012 at 8:56

Martijn Pieters

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3 Comments

zoul Over a year ago

To a complete Python noob like me it looks like the first variable contains a double quote (") and the second one a single quote ('). These string should be different indeed? (Not my downvote.)

Emil Ivanov Over a year ago

From the examples in the question it seems that one of the strings contains ', while the other contains ". The quoting part is clear.

zoul Over a year ago

Now the poster has fixed the question this answer makes sense.

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