str.replace adding back slash

Question

I have this interactive session:

>>> str = '192.168.1.1'
>>> str = str.replace('.','\.')
>>> str
'192\\.168\\.1\\.1'

I want the out put to be: 192\.168\.1\.1 instead of 192\\.168\\.1\\.1

How can I achieve this? Why is it behaving this way?

Duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2179493/adding-backslashes-without-escaping-python — cEz, Jun 21 '11 at 21:39

score 8 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 21 '11 at 21:37

Use print str instead of str:

>> str = '192.168.1.1'
>>> str = str.replace('.','\.')
>>> str
'192\\.168\\.1\\.1'
>>> print str
192\.168\.1\.1

Your string is the one you expect it to be, but when you just dump the object, python is showing it to you in a form you could use to assign to another string - that means escaping the \ characters.

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 21 '11 at 21:37

3

The string is exactly what it should be. The extra slashes are only in the display, not in the actual string.

answered Jun 21 '11 at 21:37

Mark Ransom

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The reason being, I suppose, that \. is not a valid escape sequence? – Martin Törnwall Jun 21 '11 at 21:39

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jun 21 '11 at 21:41

0

\ is an escape character, so \ is required to add \ to the string by hiding its escape character nature.

If you use "print" before your string name, you'll see how it appears rather than what it actually contains.

answered Jun 21 '11 at 21:41

carlbenson

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str.replace adding back slash

3 Answers3