File paths in Python in the form of string throw errors

Question

I need to put a lot of filepaths in the form of strings in Python as part of my program. For example one of my directories is D:\ful_automate\dl. But Python recognizes some of the characters together as other characters and throws an error. In the example the error is IOError: [Errno 22] invalid mode ('wb') or filename: 'D:\x0cul_automate\\dl. It happens a lot for me and every time I need to change the directory name to one that may not be problematic.

Martijn Pieters · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-19 15:10:06Z

21

The \ character is used to form character escapes; \f has special meaning.

Use / or use raw string r'' instead. Alternatively, you could ensure that Python reads the backslash as a backslash by escaping it with an additional \.

r'D:\ful_automate\dl'
'D:\\ful_automate\\dl'
'D:/ful_automate/dl'

Demo to show the difference:

>>> 'D:\ful_automate\dl'
'D:\x0cul_automate\\dl'
>>> r'D:\ful_automate\dl'
'D:\\ful_automate\\dl'

edited Dec 19, 2012 at 15:10

answered Dec 19, 2012 at 15:04

Martijn Pieters

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user695580 · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-19 15:31:58Z

3

Use raw string instead of string ie use r'filepath' It fixes the problem off blacklash "\"

answered Dec 19, 2012 at 15:31

user695580

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