how to replace back slash character with empty string in python
Question:
I am trying replace a backslash ” in a string with the following code
string = "<P style='TEXT-INDENT'>B7 </P>"
result = string.replace("",'')
result:
------------------------------------------------------------
File "<ipython console>", line 1
result = string.replace("",'')
^
SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal
Here i don’t need the back slashes because actually i am parsing an xml file which has a tag in the above format, so if backslashes are there it is displaying invalid token during parsing
Can i know how to replace the backslashes with empty string in python
Answers:
The error is because you did not add a escape character to your '', you should give \ for backslash ()
In [147]: foo = "acd" # example string with backslashes
In [148]: foo
Out[148]: 'a\c\d'
In [149]: foo.replace('\', " ")
Out[149]: 'a c d'
In [150]: foo.replace('\', "")
Out[150]: 'acd'
We need to specify that we want to replace a string that contains a single backslash. We cannot write that as "", because the backslash is escaping the intended closing double-quote. We also cannot use a raw string literal for this: r"" does not work.
Instead, we simply escape the backslash using another backslash:
result = string.replace("\","")
>>> string = "<P style='TEXT-INDENT'>B7 </P>"
>>> result = string.replace("\",'')
>>> result
"<P style='TEXT-INDENT'>B7 </P>"
In Python, as explained in the documentation:
The backslash () character is used to escape characters that otherwise have a special meaning, such as newline, backslash itself, or the quote character.
So, in order to replace
>>> "this is a I want to replace".replace("\", "?")
'this is a ? I want to replace'
You need to escape ” with one extra backslash to compare actually with
See Python Documentation – section 2.4 for all the escape sequences in Python.. And how you should handle them..
Adding a solution if string='abcdnop.png'
result = string.replace("\","")
This above won’t work as it’ll give result='abcdnop.png'.
Here if you see n is a newline character. So we have to replace backslah char in raw string(as there ‘n’ won’t be detected)
string.encode('unicode_escape')
result = string.replace("\", "")
#result=abcdnop.png
Using regular expressions:
import re
new_string = re.sub("\\", "", old_string)
The trick here is that "\\" is a string literal describing a string containing two backslashes (each one is escaped), then the regex engine compiles that into a pattern that will match one backslash (doing a separate layer of unescaping).
It’s August 2020.
Python 3.8.1
Pandas 1.1.0
At this point in time I used both the double backslash AND the r.
df.replace([r'\'], [''], regex=True, inplace=True)
Cheers.
I am trying replace a backslash ” in a string with the following code
string = "<P style='TEXT-INDENT'>B7 </P>"
result = string.replace("",'')
result:
------------------------------------------------------------
File "<ipython console>", line 1
result = string.replace("",'')
^
SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal
Here i don’t need the back slashes because actually i am parsing an xml file which has a tag in the above format, so if backslashes are there it is displaying invalid token during parsing
Can i know how to replace the backslashes with empty string in python
The error is because you did not add a escape character to your '', you should give \ for backslash ()
In [147]: foo = "acd" # example string with backslashes
In [148]: foo
Out[148]: 'a\c\d'
In [149]: foo.replace('\', " ")
Out[149]: 'a c d'
In [150]: foo.replace('\', "")
Out[150]: 'acd'
We need to specify that we want to replace a string that contains a single backslash. We cannot write that as "", because the backslash is escaping the intended closing double-quote. We also cannot use a raw string literal for this: r"" does not work.
Instead, we simply escape the backslash using another backslash:
result = string.replace("\","")
>>> string = "<P style='TEXT-INDENT'>B7 </P>"
>>> result = string.replace("\",'')
>>> result
"<P style='TEXT-INDENT'>B7 </P>"
In Python, as explained in the documentation:
The backslash () character is used to escape characters that otherwise have a special meaning, such as newline, backslash itself, or the quote character.
So, in order to replace in a string, you need to escape the backslash itself with another backslash, thus:
>>> "this is a I want to replace".replace("\", "?")
'this is a ? I want to replace'
You need to escape ” with one extra backslash to compare actually with .. So you should use ”..
See Python Documentation – section 2.4 for all the escape sequences in Python.. And how you should handle them..
Adding a solution if string='abcdnop.png'
result = string.replace("\","")
This above won’t work as it’ll give result='abcdnop.png'.
Here if you see n is a newline character. So we have to replace backslah char in raw string(as there ‘n’ won’t be detected)
string.encode('unicode_escape')
result = string.replace("\", "")
#result=abcdnop.png
Using regular expressions:
import re
new_string = re.sub("\\", "", old_string)
The trick here is that "\\" is a string literal describing a string containing two backslashes (each one is escaped), then the regex engine compiles that into a pattern that will match one backslash (doing a separate layer of unescaping).
It’s August 2020.
Python 3.8.1
Pandas 1.1.0
At this point in time I used both the double backslash AND the r.
df.replace([r'\'], [''], regex=True, inplace=True)
Cheers.