python str.replace does not work with '\'

Question

In column df['2'] I have a path with a filename:

C:\file1.txt

With code below I wanted to split off the filename:

df['2'].str.split('', n = 2, expand = True)

I get this error:

 File "<ipython-input-136-fe70d6bdb12c>", line 1
    df['2'].str.split('\', n = 2, expand = True)
                                                           ^
SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal

What am I doing wrong? It works for every other string I put in there.

you need to escape the '\' with '\\' as: `df['2'].str.split('\\', n = 2, expand = True)` — Krishna Chaurasia, Mar 10 '21 at 13:29

MarcoP · Answer 1 · 2021-03-10T13:37:40.607

0

you are escaping the ' char with \ so the string literal is invalid and the interpreter finds a Syntax Error

I would recommend to use os.path for this kind of operations on path names, it is easy and and as a bonus it will work on every OS.

edited Mar 10 '21 at 13:37

answered Mar 10 '21 at 13:31

MarcoP

1,438
10
17

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 10 '21 at 13:34

0

instead of df['2'].str.split('\', n = 2, expand = True) try df['2'].str.split(chr(92), n = 2, expand = True)

answered Mar 10 '21 at 13:34

poisonbox

16
2

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 10 '21 at 13:47

If you're using python 3.4 or newer, the built in pathlib library works really well with paths. It eliminates most of the pain from / and . To get your implementation to work Krishnas suggestion in the comments should do the trick.

Here is anyway how to do this with pathlib:

from pathlib import Path

filename = Path(df['2'].str).stem

https://docs.python.org/3/library/pathlib.html

python str.replace does not work with '\'

3 Answers3