python string error

Question

dir = "C:\Users\Geraldes\Desktop\media\teste\ASMS_TapeA01A1691329.mxf"

print dir

using the code above, i get this... i know that \t is tab

C:\Users\Geraldes\Desktop\media  (espacamento)  este\ASMS_TapeA01A1691329.mxf

but, to fix this i do:

dir1 = dir.replace("\\", "\\\\")

print "dir:",dir1

and i get

C:\\Users\\Geraldes\\Desktop\\media (espacamento)  este\\ASMS_TapeA01A1691329.mxf

how can i fix this problem?

Nate · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-30 11:15:16Z

5

escape your original string's backslashes, or use raw strings.

That is,

dir = "C:\\Users\\Geraldes\\Desktop\\media\\teste\\ASMS_TapeA01A1691329.mxf"

or

dir = r"C:\Users\Geraldes\Desktop\media\teste\ASMS_TapeA01A1691329.mxf"

BUT: be careful with the second choice, because raw strings were not invented for windows paths - they were put there for regular expressions. Thus, one day you will find that you want to put a backslash at the end of the string, like this:

dir = "C:\Users\Geraldes\Desktop\media\teste\"

It won't work. This is discussed in greater depth here.

answered Jun 30, 2011 at 11:15

Nate

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4 Comments

nuno Over a year ago

thanks guys, i was having a bad time with kinda simple thing ;)

kindall Over a year ago

You can write it as: r"C:\whatever\whatever\\". You'll get two backslashes at the end, but that doesn't matter. The path still works fine that way!

Chris Morgan Over a year ago

Some things will choke on trailing slashes and double slashes. Not everything parses paths correctly.

kindall Over a year ago

True. I should say that Windows is fine with having an empty segment in a pathname, but who knows what expectations other code might have.

joaquin · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-30 12:29:26Z

4

Nobody said but, in addition to expanded backlashes and raw strings, you can also use forward slashes

>>> dir = "C:/Users/Geraldes/Desktop/media/teste/ASMS_TapeA01A1691329.mxf"
>>> dir
'C:/Users/Geraldes/Desktop/media/teste/ASMS_TapeA01A1691329.mxf'
>>>

In fact, forward slashes are accepted by Windows (Check this for more info)

Microsoft Windows [Versión 6.1.7601]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. Reservados todos los derechos.

C:\>cd Users/joaquin

C:\Users\joaquin>

In any case the safest method is to use os.path.join to build your paths in an OS agnostic way.

>>> import os
>>> os.path.join('C:\Users', 'Geraldes', 'Desktop', 'media', 'teste', 'ASMS.mxf')
'C:\\Users\\Geraldes\\Desktop\\media\\teste\\ASMS.mxf'
>>>

edited Jun 30, 2011 at 12:29

answered Jun 30, 2011 at 11:26

joaquin

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4 Comments

Chris Morgan Over a year ago

Forward slashes work with most things, but not by a long shot with all. It's not safe to assume that any given thing will work with forward slashes - far too many don't.

joaquin Over a year ago

@Chris Morgan, right, there is a discussion on the link I gave. Still I never found any problem for the case discussed (for pathname strings in windows). It would be interesting if you could give an example showing the potential problems of slashes.

Nate Over a year ago

I would also point out that you can use os.path.normpath (discussed in the article I linked to in my answer) to avoid any potential trouble with slashes in paths

Chris Morgan Over a year ago

@joaquin: I have come across some things that don't work properly with forward slashes, but I can't think of any of them offhand. The main nuisance that I've found with it is that path completion in Command Prompt doesn't work if you use forward slashes.

Felix Kling · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-30 11:15:40Z

3

Define a "raw" string:

dir = r"C:\Users\Geraldes\Desktop\media\teste\ASMS_TapeA01A1691329.mxf"

answered Jun 30, 2011 at 11:15

Felix Kling

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1 Comment

monojohnny Over a year ago

great, never knew about this way of doing it; goodbye double-slashes !

Marcin · Accepted Answer · 2011-06-30 11:16:01Z

3

You can use raw formatting:

dir = r"C:\Users\Geraldes\Desktop\media\teste\ASMS_TapeA01A1691329.mxf"

This will print as:

>>> print(dir)
C:\Users\Geraldes\Desktop\media\teste\ASMS_TapeA01A1691329.mxf

answered Jun 30, 2011 at 11:16

Marcin

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Comments

Martijn Pieters · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-26 17:48:19Z

0

A less obvious and less efficient way is to do the following:

import os
os.chdir()#change to each directory separately
print os.getcwd()

edited May 26, 2012 at 17:48

Martijn Pieters

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answered Jun 30, 2011 at 16:51

user823447

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