Howto NOT escape a string function parameter in python

Question

To cut a long story short. I have this function:

def save_screenshot(self, file_destination, picture_format = None)
    file_path_name, file_extension = os.path.splitext(file_destination)
    file_path, file_name = os.path.split(file_path_name)
    (...)

Now, I call the function like this:

save_screenshot("C:\Temp\picture.jpg", "JPG")

I know howto NOT escape a string in python (with the help of "os.path.join"), but I don't know howto do this, if the string is a function parameter. The function works fine (on a windows), if I write "C:\\Temp\\picture.jpg" or "C:/Temp/picture.jpg".

Would be great, if you have some advice.
thanks

Do you want to read the path from console? I don't quite seem to understand what is your goal here. — dmg, Feb 28 '13 at 11:32
@DJV: No, not from console. Everything is included in a script without any request during the script. — eljobso, Feb 28 '13 at 11:40
@eljobso Then [SaCry's answer](http://stackoverflow.com/a/15134710/1974792) is what you are looking for — dmg, Feb 28 '13 at 11:48

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:57

As mentioned you could use:

Raw String r" string "

save_screenshot(r"C:\Temp\picture.jpg", "JPG")

It should also be possible to use """ string """

save_screenshot("""C:\Temp\picture.jpg""", "JPG")

Maybe I could also reference to this answer on Stack: what-exactly-do-u-and-rstring-flags..

This basically explains how to use raw string literals in order to ignore escape sequences that derive from backslashes in Strings (mostly for regexp).

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 28 '13 at 12:01

I thing your problem is not using os.path rather then escape/unescape string.
Would this function better?

def save_screenshot(self, file_destination, picture_format = None):
    file_name = os.path.basename(file_destination)
    path = os.path.dirname(file_destination)
    base, ext = os.path.splitext(file_name)
    e = ext if picture_format is None else '.%s' % picture_format.lower()
    to_path = os.path.join(path, base + e)
    print(to_path)

Howto NOT escape a string function parameter in python

2 Answers2