How to single-escape a Pipe in a string: Unexpected str.replace behaviour

Asked Apr 16 '19 at 08:25

Active Apr 16 '19 at 08:25

Viewed 22 times

Python's str.replace seems to be doing "clever" character escaping and the docs don't show any way to 'override' this behaviour.

Expected:

x = "val|with|pipe"

x.replace("|","\|")
>>> "val\|with\|pipe"

Actual output:

x.replace("|","\|")
>>> "val\\|with\\|pipe"

Bonus Round:

x.replace('|','\\|')
>>> "val\\|with\\|pipe"

asked Apr 16 '19 at 08:25

Bolster

2

Your debug output is adding the second backslash, not the replace function. – tkausl Apr 16 '19 at 08:28
`"\\"` is just a backslash, the first backslash is just the scaping – Netwave Apr 16 '19 at 08:30
Ugh, that makes sense; unfortunately that means that my "root" problem is deeper than I'd hoped :( – Bolster Apr 16 '19 at 08:34

0 Answers0