Print escaped representation of a str

Question

How do I print the escaped representation of a string, for example if I have:

s = "String:\tA"

I wish to output:

String:\tA

on the screen instead of

String:    A

The equivalent function in java is:

String xy = org.apache.commons.lang.StringEscapeUtils.escapeJava(yourString);
System.out.println(xy);

[This question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4202538/python-escape-special-characters) may be of interest to you, though the solution escapes a bit more than what you want.. — m01, Feb 19 '13 at 15:19

Martijn Pieters · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-19T15:33:24.890

34

You want to encode the string with the string_escape codec:

print s.encode('string_escape')

or you can use the repr() function, which will turn a string into it's python literal representation including the quotes:

print repr(s)

Demonstration:

>>> s = "String:\tA"
>>> print s.encode('string_escape')
String:\tA
>>> print repr(s)
'String:\tA'

In Python 3, you'd be looking for the unicode_escape codec instead:

print(s.encode('unicode_escape'))

which will print a bytes value. To turn that back into a unicode value, just decode from ASCII:

>>> s = "String:\tA"
>>> print(s.encode('unicode_escape'))
b'String:\\tA'
>>> print(s.encode('unicode_escape').decode('ASCII'))
String:\tA

edited Feb 19 '13 at 15:33

answered Feb 19 '13 at 15:21

Martijn Pieters

I just want to say again that this is neat. As one who works almost entirely in ASCII, I don't think of encoding very often -- (though I'm trying to be more mindful of that stuff). -- Unfortunately, now that you're the top answer, mine will likely stop getting upvotes ;-). – mgilson Feb 19 '13 at 15:36
@mgilson I upvote Martjin's answer because I wasn't aware of the existence of 'string_escape' and mgilson's answer because I'm in a good humor :) – eyquem Feb 19 '13 at 16:03

score 11 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 19 '13 at 15:17

11

you can use repr:

print repr(s)

demo

>>> s = "String:\tA"
>>> print repr(s)
'String:\tA'

This will give the quotes -- but you can slice those off easily:

>>> print repr(s)[1:-1]
String:\tA

answered Feb 19 '13 at 15:17

mgilson

1

@MartijnPieters -- Never seen that before. neat. +1 to your answer :) – mgilson Feb 19 '13 at 15:22

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 19 '13 at 15:18

0

Give print repr(string) a shot

answered Feb 19 '13 at 15:18

Sash

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 19 '13 at 15:18

0

As ever, its easy in python:

print(repr(s))

answered Feb 19 '13 at 15:18

Baz

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Feb 19 '13 at 15:19

0

print uses str, which processes escapes. You want repr.

>>> a = "Hello\tbye\n"
>>> print str(a)
Hello   bye

>>> print repr(a)
'Hello\tbye\n'

answered Feb 19 '13 at 15:19

salezica

5 Answers5