Process escape sequences in a string in Python

escaping, python, string

Solution

The correct thing to do is use the 'string-escape' code to decode the string.

>>> myString = "spam\\neggs"
>>> decoded_string = bytes(myString, "utf-8").decode("unicode_escape") # python3 
>>> decoded_string = myString.decode('string_escape') # python2
>>> print(decoded_string)
spam
eggs

Don't use the AST or eval. Using the string codecs is much safer.

Problem

Sometimes when I get input from a file or the user, I get a string with escape sequences in it. I would like to process the escape sequences in the same way that Python processes escape sequences in string literals. For example, let's say `myString` is defined as: ``` >>> myString = "spam\\neggs" >>> print(myString) spam\neggs ``` I want a function (I'll call it `process`) that does this: ``` >>> print(process(myString)) spam eggs ``` It's important that the function can process all of the escape sequences in Python (listed in a table in the link above). Does Python have a function to do this?

Original source

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