Function equivalent to prepending string with "r" in Python

Question

It's great that I can write

s = r"some line\n"

but what is the functional equivalent to preprending with r? For example:

s = raw_rep( s )

NPE · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-28 16:40:40Z

3

There isn't one. The r is an integral part of the string literal token, and omitting it is a lossy operation.

For example, r'\n', r'\12' and r'\x0a' are three different strings. However, if you omit the r, they become identical, making it impossible to tell which of the three it was to begin with.

For this reason, this is no method that would reconstruct the original string 100% of the time.

edited Mar 28, 2013 at 16:40

answered Mar 28, 2013 at 16:34

NPE

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3 Comments

Cam.Davidson.Pilon Over a year ago

I understand your example. Is there a workaround? What if I don't care what the original string is, is there a workaround?

NPE Over a year ago

@Cam.Davidson.Pilon: What exactly are you trying to do?

Cam.Davidson.Pilon Over a year ago

json.loads some data with escape characters. ex: json.loads( """{"data":"aefea\n"}""" ) will fail.

Mark Ransom · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-28 16:53:15Z

2

def raw_rep(s):
    quote = '"' if "'" in s else "'"
    return 'r' + quote + s + quote

>>> print raw_rep(r'some line\n')
r'some line\n'

answered Mar 28, 2013 at 16:53

Mark Ransom

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