How to Quote Backslash in String in Python

1. Quotes With Backslash in a String Variable With the \ Escape Character in Python
2. Quotes With Backslash in a String Variable With the Raw String Method in Python

This tutorial will discuss the methods used to initialize a string variable containing a backslash, which is enclosed inside quotation marks in Python.

Quotes With Backslash in a String Variable With the \ Escape Character in Python

The \ is an escape character used to store characters that cannot be normally stored inside a string variable in Python.

For example, we cannot directly store a quotation mark inside a string variable; however, we can do this by writing a backslash immediately before the quotation mark.

This phenomenon is shown in the following code snippet.

string1 = "Quotation " " inside a string"
print(string1)
string2 = "Quotation '' inside a string"
print(string2)

Output:

Quotation  inside a string
Quotation '' inside a string

We demonstrated the use of the \ escape character to use quotation marks inside a string variable. To use the \ escape character for enclosing another backslash inside quotation marks, we have to utilize the following notation.

string = 'Quotes with backslash "\\"'
print(string)

Output:

Quotes with backslash "\"

We initialized a string variable that contains a backslash enclosed inside quotation marks with the \ escape character in the code above. The only issue with this process is we have to place the escape character at specific locations inside our string.

Quotes With Backslash in a String Variable With the Raw String Method in Python

This process is a different method you can use to write characters that cannot be normally stored inside a string in Python. This method is also easier because we don’t have to worry about the correct placement of the escape characters.

All you have to do is write r before the string and then write whatever you want to display in the console. Raw strings are usually used to store regular expressions in Python. We can also use them on our current topic.

The following code block demonstrate how you can initialize a string variable where a backslash is enclosed inside quotation marks using the raw string method.

string = r'Quotes with backslash "\"'
print(string)

Output:

Quotes with backslash "\"

We initialized a string variable containing a backslash enclosed inside quotation marks using the raw string method in the above code.