1
**w = open("C:\Users\kp\Desktop\example.csv", "w+")**

The above code shows the following error

**> w = open("C:\Users\kp\Desktop\example.csv", "w+")
            ^
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-3: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape**

Process finished with exit code 1

What can be the actual reasons and possible solutions to this problem? Note that I'm using PyCharm to work with python, and working with '.csv' files.

Shantanu
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  • You need to escape the backslashes by putting double backslashes. `C:\ ` becomes `C:\\ ` and so on. – Pike D. Mar 02 '17 at 06:43

2 Answers2

1

You need to escape backslashes (\):

w = open("C:\\Users\\kp\\Desktop\\example.csv", "w+")

or use raw string literals:

w = open(r"C:\Users\kp\Desktop\example.csv", "w+")

to mean backslash literally.

Otherwise, backslash (\) character is used to escape characters that otherwise have a special meaning, such as newline, backslash itself, or the quote character.

>>> print('hello\nworld')  # \n -> newline
hello
world
>>> print('hello\\nworld')
hello\nworld
>>> print(r'hello\nworld')
hello\nworld

>>> print('\U00000064')
d
>>> print('\\U00000064')
\U00000064
>>> print(r'\U00000064')
\U00000064
falsetru
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-1

Apart from above answers, In general, if you wish to avoid such errors while giving a path.
I would recommend using:

os.path.join()

This helps to such Unicode errors in paths and the same line of code works on different OS as Windows and Unix have different path conventions.

Anurag
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