Can I get a technical explanation on the following error

[grocery_stocker]

How come something like '\' causes an error? Here is what I mean.

[cdalten@localhost ~]$ python
Python 2.6.2 (r262:71600, May 3 2009, 17:04:44)
[GCC 4.1.1 20061011 (Red Hat 4.1.1-30)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> print "test \"
File "<stdin>", line 1
print "test \"
^
SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal
>>>

I mean, isn't the '\' a character just like the letter 't'?

[Hans Müller]

Try this:

print "\\"

\ is the escape character, it masks the meaning of the next chararcter.

If you write print "\" python tries to print " (the meaning of " as
the string delimiter is beeing masked) and finds no closing "
This is why you got the error.

hth.

Greetings
Hans

[DasIch]

'\' starts a escape sequence. You need to escape '\' with a '\' to make it
work.
>>> print 'test \\'
test \

[grocery_stocker]

So something like

"\"

changes the meaning of " ? How? Does it just shift the ASCII bit(s)?

[Rhodri James]

On Sun, 24 May 2009 21:14:44 +0100, grocery_stocker <cda...@gmail.com>
wrote:

No. There is a fixed set of "escape sequences" as they're called.
The Fine Manual lists them here:

http://docs.python.org/reference/lexical_analysis.html#literals

--
Rhodri James *-* Wildebeeste Herder to the Masses

[Jim Garrison]

And as an interesting exercise, try

print r'test \'
print r'test \\'

Because of the way raw string parsing is defined, neither of these will
pass the parser. In fact, a raw string cannot have a backslash as
its last character.

[Chris Rebert]

No, the Python parser handles it when it parses string literals.

Cheers,
Chris
--
http://blog.rebertia.com

[Niklas Norrthon]

Tried it:
>>> r'test \'

SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal

>>> r'test \\'
'test \\\\'

Second one is accepted. See the language reference section 2.4.1 as of
why; http://www.python.org/doc/current/reference/lexical_analysis.html?highlight=raw%20strings#string-literals

/Niklas Norrthon

[pdpi]

Ask yourself: 'How would I tell Python to print the " character when
it's used as the string delimitation character?'. Unlike us (you
probably didn't even blink at the usage of ' in "it's" versus its
usage as quote delimiters in that sentence), computers can't quite
tell usage from context. So you have to come up with a way to express
ourselves. Many languages use the \ character as an escape character,
which modifies the meaning of the next character in a string. \n, \t,
\" are all common. Other languages use other conventions -- I program
ABAP professionally, and it uses ' as the string delimiter, and '' as
a literal -- so a string with one single ' is expressed as ''''.

The python interpreter isn't doing any bit magic here, it's just
reading a \ character followed by a " character and changing its
interpretation of " appropriately.

[Piet van Oostrum]

>>>>> Jim Garrison <j...@acm.org> (JG) wrote:

>JG> And as an interesting exercise, try
>JG> print r'test \'
>JG> print r'test \\'

>JG> Because of the way raw string parsing is defined, neither of these will
>JG> pass the parser. In fact, a raw string cannot have a backslash as
>JG> its last character.

Cannot have an odd number of backslashes as its last characters.

>>> print r'test \\'
test \\
--
Piet van Oostrum <pi...@cs.uu.nl>
URL: http://pietvanoostrum.com [PGP 8DAE142BE17999C4]
Private email: pi...@vanoostrum.org