Replace '\' character in python

Question

I don't know why i can't find it, but i wanted to replace the special character `'\'` in python. I have a String within i have `'\'` characters but i confident find the solution, to replace it with '-'. This is what happening while i am trying to replace, ``` >>> x = 'hello\world' >>> x 'hello\world' >>> x.replace('\', '-') File "<stdin>", line 1 x.replace('\', '-') SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal ``` EDIT: Do try this it in the eclipse IDLE ``` x = 'hello\world' print x x.replace('\', '-') print x ``` Output: ``` hello\world hello\world ```

Accepted Answer

You need to escape it with another backslash:

```
 x.replace('\', '-')
```

Backslashes are special, in that they are used to introduce non-printing characters like newlines into a string.

It's also how you add a `'` character to a `'`-quoted string, which is what Python thinks you were trying to do. It sees `\'` and interprets as a literal quote within the string, rather than letting the `'` end the string. Then it gets to the end of the string and finds `EOL` ("end of line") before the end of the string.

To introduce a real backslash, you need to double it. You can see that Python itself did this when printing the representation of your initial string here:

```
>>> x
'hello\world'
```

Note the double backslash.

You ought to use a double backslash when specifying your string in the first place. The reason that doesn't need it is that `\w` is not a special character, so it gets interpreted as a literal backslash and a `w`. Had you said `'Hello
ow'` you would have a string with a newline in it.

You could have also marked the string as a "raw" string by prepending it with `r` as in `r'hello\world'`. This marks the string as not being eligible for any substitutions of special characters.

Replace '\' character in python

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