SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal while doing string interpolation for file names

Question

I am trying to write the following line for a function:

    a.to_csv("~\Desktop\" + file.split('\\')[-1])

but I get

SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal

I also tried an f string:

a.to_csv(f"~\Desktop\{file.split('\\')[-1]}")

but I get

SyntaxError: f-string expression part cannot include a backslash

I didn't think this would be such a problem, any help would be appreciated. I am trying to extract the file name part of a path.

You're escaping the closing quote, so you need to escape the escaping with another backslash to terminate the string — LukasNeugebauer, Feb 26 '21 at 18:05
@LukasNeugebauer you mean in the first part right? Don't you want correct answer points? Make an actual answer — ACan, Feb 26 '21 at 18:09
It's just a partial one, but if that answers your question, I'll make it an answer ;) — LukasNeugebauer, Feb 26 '21 at 18:11

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 26 '21 at 18:14

Backslashes are used to form special characters like \n and to escape characters that would have an effect, like in your case the quote sign. \" is going to be a literal quote sign in the string and it will not terminate the string. To change that behavior of backslashes, you need to escape them themselves. I.e., if you want a backslash in a string, always type \\ instead of \.

a.to_csv("~\\Desktop\\" + file.split('\\')[-1])

should work.

SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal while doing string interpolation for file names

1 Answers1