Question

In Python, I can prefix an r to a string literal (raw string) to tell the interpreter not translate special characters in the string:

>>> r"abc\nsdf#$%\^"
r"abc\nsdf#$%\^"

Is there a way to do the same thing in Clojure?

Answer 1

Clojure strings are Java strings and the reader does not add anything significant to their interpretation. The reader page just says “standard Java escape characters are supported.”

You can escape the \ though:

user> (print "abc\\nsdf#$%\\^")
abc\nsdf#$%\^

This only affect string literals read by the reader, so if you read strings from a file the reader never sees them:

user> (spit "/tmp/foo" "abc\\nsdf#$%\\^")
nil
user> (slurp "/tmp/foo")
"abc\\nsdf#$%\\^"
user> (print (slurp "/tmp/foo"))
abc\nsdf#$%\^nil
user> 

So, I think the basic answer is no.