Question

i’ve the following code:

import re

key = re.escape('#one #two #some #tests #are #done')
print(key)
key = key.split()
print(key)

and the following output:

\#one\ \#two\ \#some\ \#tests\ \#are\ \#done
['\\#one\\', '\\#two\\', '\\#some\\', '\\#tests\\', '\\#are\\', '\\#done']

How come the backslashes are duplicated? I just want them once in my list, because i would like to use this list in a regular expression.

Thanks in advance! John

Answer 1

There is only one backslash each, but when printing the repr of the strings, they are duplicated (escaped) – just as you would need to duplicate them when using a string to build a regex. So everything is fine.

For example:

>>> len("\\")
1
>>> len("\\n")
2
>>> len("\n")
1
>>> print "\\n"
\n
>>> print "\n"


>>>