Question

In the source file, I have within the line the following data item (as is, len=11):

(?i:\'sa\')

When I pass it to a re.match, the matching (.groupdict()) value, written into a file, appears to be:

(?i:\sa\)

(len=9)

Question is, how to I preserve value raw (as in the following b example), between re.match and file.write

>>> a = '(?i:\'sa\')'
>>> b = r'(?i:\'sa\')'
>>> len(b)
11
>>> len(a)
9
>>> len(b)
11
>>> print b
(?i:\'sa\')

Note, since I am processing large and complex files provided by third party, I do not want nor can I change from 'a\'b' to "b'b" but must keep things as they are.

Answer 1

Probably string_escape is what you need:

>>> s = raw_input()
(?i:\'sa\')
>>> s
"(?i:\\'sa\\')"
>>> len(s)
11
>>> s.decode('string_escape')
"(?i:'sa')"
>>> len(s.decode('string_escape'))
9