How to convert backslash string to forward slash string in python3?

Question

I am using python3 in my ubuntu machine. I have a string variable which consist a path with backslash and i need to convert it to forward slash string. So i tried

import pathlib
s = '\dir\wnotherdir\joodir\more'
x = repr(s)
p = pathlib.PureWindowsPath(x)
print(p.as_posix())

this will print correctly as

/dir/wnotherdir/joodir/more

but for different other string path, it acts weirdly. Ex, for the string,

'\dir\aotherdir\oodir\more'

it correctly replacing backslashes but the value is wrong because of the character 'a' in original string

/dir/x07otherdir/oodir/more

What is the reason for this behavior?

\a is widely interpreted as the ascii BEL character (07), so it looks like repr(), is performing this translation. A shallow search suggests you should be using x = x.replace("\\", "/") to correct the path separator. — mevets
– mevets, Commented Jul 19, 2021 at 13:08
still getting the same response as /dir/x07otherdir/oodir/more — anas
– anas, Commented Jul 19, 2021 at 13:52

lonetwin · Accepted Answer · 2021-07-19 13:05:58Z

3

This has nothing to do with paths per-se. The problem here is that the \a is being interpreted as an ASCII BELL. As a rule of thumb whenever you want to disable the special interpretation of escaped string literals you should use raw strings:

>>> import pathlib
>>> r = r'\dir\aotherdir\oodir\more'
>>> pathlib.PureWindowsPath(r)
PureWindowsPath('/dir/aotherdir/oodir/more')
>>>

answered Jul 19, 2021 at 13:05

lonetwin

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2 Comments

anas Over a year ago

this will work. But i need to pass the variable dynamically. That's why a variable is needed here to represent the string path

lonetwin Over a year ago

@AhkamNaseek the raw-string would be created at the point of input. The string-literal would be ideally be escaped when read if it contains a "\" by all low-level apis, so you wouldn't need to call repr() to escape it, eg: ` >>> s = input() \a >>> with open('foo.txt', 'w') as fd: fd.write(s) ... 2 >>> open('./foo.txt').read() '\\a' >>> `

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