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diff --git a/Doc/faq/programming.rst b/Doc/faq/programming.rst index c396e2b..ba42289 100644 --- a/Doc/faq/programming.rst +++ b/Doc/faq/programming.rst @@ -1026,6 +1026,46 @@ What does 'UnicodeDecodeError' or 'UnicodeEncodeError' error mean? See the :ref:`unicode-howto`. +.. _faq-programming-raw-string-backslash: + +Can I end a raw string with an odd number of backslashes? +--------------------------------------------------------- + +A raw string ending with an odd number of backslashes will escape the string's quote:: + + >>> r'C:\this\will\not\work\' + File "<stdin>", line 1 + r'C:\this\will\not\work\' + ^ + SyntaxError: unterminated string literal (detected at line 1) + +There are several workarounds for this. One is to use regular strings and double +the backslashes:: + + >>> 'C:\\this\\will\\work\\' + 'C:\\this\\will\\work\\' + +Another is to concatenate a regular string containing an escaped backslash to the +raw string:: + + >>> r'C:\this\will\work' '\\' + 'C:\\this\\will\\work\\' + +It is also possible to use :func:`os.path.join` to append a backslash on Windows:: + + >>> os.path.join(r'C:\this\will\work', '') + 'C:\\this\\will\\work\\' + +Note that while a backslash will "escape" a quote for the purposes of +determining where the raw string ends, no escaping occurs when interpreting the +value of the raw string. That is, the backslash remains present in the value of +the raw string:: + + >>> r'backslash\'preserved' + "backslash\\'preserved" + +Also see the specification in the :ref:`language reference <strings>`. + Performance =========== |