How to format a string with escape sequences implemented? Not same as earlier Q

Question

I have an output coming out of a function. The output string has escape sequence (mainly \n).

I need to format this string so that escape sequence are implemented before I pass the formatted string to another function. The second function needs it in formatted way for it to do a text search with similar text.

Here's what I mean:

text = r'Your team should include the following \nboard-certified experts:\n \nA pulmonologist is a doctor who's an \nexpert of lung diseases.\n'

formatted_text = """Your team should include the following 
board-certified experts:
 
A pulmonologist is a doctor who's an 
expert of lung diseases."""

So as u see, if I do print(text), i will get the second string as print will implement the escape sequences. But I don't want to print. I want to format as second and store it another variable.

EDIT:

Pls run it in a notebook cell and DO NOT print(formatted_text). Run it just as a variable. If it doesn't remove escape sequence, it's not what I want.

Edit 2:

What I am looking for:

Answer 1

Presuming you are wishing to keep these escape characters function (tab, newline, etc.) but remove the actual text for it, use codecs.

import codecs

text = r"Your team should include the following \nboard-certified experts:\n \nA pulmonologist is a doctor who's an \nexpert of lung diseases.\n"

print(text)

formatted_text = codecs.decode(text, 'unicode_escape')

print(formatted_text)

Returns:

Your team should include the following
board-certified experts:

A pulmonologist is a doctor who's an
expert of lung diseases.

See this post with a similar question

EDIT:

EDIT 2: Note there is a newline character at the end of the raw string, so either remove the newline character at the end of a string OR your desired string will be slightly different.

import codecs

text = r"Your team should include the following \nboard-certified experts:\n \nA pulmonologist is a doctor who's an \nexpert of lung diseases.\n" # <- because of newline here in original text

desired_text = """Your team should include the following 
board-certified experts:
 
A pulmonologist is a doctor who's an 
expert of lung diseases.
"""    # <- additional newline here

formatted_text = codecs.decode(text, 'unicode_escape')

if desired_text == formatted_text:
    print("yep, the same")
else:
    print("nope")

ran this with the additional newline and it works

if you need to remove any additional newlines/escape characters at the end, I would simply add this after you get the raw text and before you decode the text:

# list of escape characters you want to exclude at the end
avoided_trailing_characters = ['\\s', '\\n', '\\t']

for trailing_character in avoided_trailing_characters:
    text = text.strip(trailing_character)

Hope this helps

Answer 2

You can process your text as follows:

text = "Your team should include the following \\nboard-certified experts:\\n \\nA pulmonologist is a doctor who's an \\nexpert of lung diseases.\\n"


def process(text):
    return text.replace("\\n", "\n")


formatted_text = process(text)
print(formatted_text)