How to convert back-slashes to forward-slashes?

Question

I am working in python and I need to convert this:

C:\folderA\folderB to C:/folderA/folderB

I have three approaches:

dir = s.replace('\\','/')

dir = os.path.normpath(s) 

dir = os.path.normcase(s)

In each scenario the output has been

C:folderAfolderB

I'm not sure what I am doing wrong, any suggestions?

Answer 1

I recently found this and thought worth sharing:

import os

path = "C:\\temp\myFolder\example\\"
newPath = path.replace(os.sep, '/')
print(newPath)  # -> C:/temp/myFolder/example/

Answer 2

Your specific problem is the order and escaping of your replace arguments, should be

s.replace('\\', '/')

Then there's:

posixpath.join(*s.split('\\'))

Which on a *nix platform is equivalent to:

os.path.join(*s.split('\\'))

But don't rely on that on Windows because it will prefer the platform-specific separator. Also:

Note that on Windows, since there is a current directory for each drive, os.path.join("c:", "foo") represents a path relative to the current directory on drive C: (c:foo), not c:\foo.

Answer 3

Try

path = '/'.join(path.split('\\'))

Answer 4

Sorry for being late to the party, but I wonder no one has suggested the pathlib-library.

pathlib is a module for "Object-oriented filesystem paths"

To convert from windows-style (backslash)-paths to forward-slashes (as typically for Posix-Paths) you can do so in a very verbose (AND platform-independant) fashion with pathlib:

import pathlib

pathlib.PureWindowsPath(r"C:\folderA\folderB").as_posix()
>>> 'C:/folderA/folderB'

Be aware that the example uses the string-literal "r" (to avoid having "\" as escape-char) In other cases the path should be quoted properly (with double backslashes) "C:\\folderA\\folderB"

Answer 5

Path names are formatted differently in Windows. the solution is simple, suppose you have a path string like this:

data_file = "/Users/username/Downloads/PMLSdata/series.csv"

simply you have to change it to this: (adding r front of the path)

data_file = r"/Users/username/Downloads/PMLSdata/series.csv"

The modifier r before the string tells Python that this is a raw string. In raw strings, the backslash is interpreted literally, not as an escape character.

Answer 6

To define the path's variable you have to add r initially, then add the replace statement .replace('\\', '/') at the end.

for example:

In>>  path2 = r'C:\Users\User\Documents\Project\Em2Lph\'.replace('\\', '/')
In>>  path2 
Out>> 'C:/Users/User/Documents/Project/Em2Lph/'

This solution requires no additional libraries

Answer 7

How about :

import ntpath
import posixpath
.
.
.
dir = posixpath.join(*ntpath.split(s))
.
.

Answer 8

This can work also:

def slash_changer(directory):

if "\\" in directory:
    return directory.replace(os.sep, '/')
else:
    return directory

print(slash_changer(os.getcwd()))

Answer 9

One of the problem I came across is occur when you try to change the backslash followed by and immediate integer like

img = "C:\folderA\folderB\61853639372.png"

This will cause changing the file name, to solve this use this code

import os

img = r"C:\folderA\folderB\61853639372.png"
img = os.path.normpath(img)
print(img)

by add an r prefix to the string used to indicate that it should be treated as a "raw string". Raw strings treat backslashes as literal backslashes and do not interpret escape characters.

Answer 10

this is the perfect solution put the letter 'r' before the string that you want to convert to avoid all special characters likes '\t' and '\f'... like the example below:

str= r"\test\hhd"

print("windows path:",str.replace("\\","\\\\"))
print("Linux path:",str.replace("\\","/"))

result:

windows path: \\test\\hhd
Linux path: /test/hhd