String replace with backslashes in Python

Question

I'm trying to do a simple replacement of " " with "\s" (the literal \s, not some sort of backslash escape). This is what I think should happen:

>>> 'asdf hjkl'.replace(' ', '\s')
'asdf\shjkl'

I did this:

>>> 'asdf hjkl'.replace(' ', '\s')
'asdf\\shjkl'
>>> 'asdf hjkl'.replace(' ', '\\s')
'asdf\\shjkl'

Neither returns what I expected, and I can't for the life of me understand what's going on. What input do I have to use to get my expected output?

senderle · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-28 22:53:01Z

4

You're getting what you want. It just doesn't look that way in the REPL:

>>> 'asdf hjkl'.replace(' ', '\s')[4]
'\\'

As you can see, that's one character, not two.

Try printing it:

>>> print 'asdf hjkl'.replace(' ', '\s')
asdf\shjkl

answered Jul 28, 2011 at 22:53

senderle

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2 Comments

Waleed Khan Over a year ago

So when does the REPL act like this?

user395760 Over a year ago

@arxanas: It's not so much about the REPL, the REPL just uses repr to print objects (except None) that result from the statements you enter. And a string's repr is a string literal that, when evaluated as Python expression, gives the same string.

Areza · Accepted Answer · 2011-07-28 22:53:39Z

2

The result is only displayed, try the following,

a = 'asdf hjkl'.replace(' ','\s')
print a

answered Jul 28, 2011 at 22:53

Areza

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