Raw String in Python

1. Raw String in Python
2. Invalid Raw Strings in Python
3. Use of Raw Strings in Python

There are many ways of representing strings in Python. One way of representing strings is to convert them into raw strings.

This tutorial will define a raw string in Python.

Raw String in Python

The raw string in Python is just any usual string prefixed by an r or R. Any backslash (\) present in the string is treated like a real or literal character. For example, if a string has \n or \t in between, it will be considered a character and not a newline or a tab character.

Let us take an example of using the newline \n character in between a string without prefixing the string with r or R.

print("Hi\nHow are you?")

Output:

Hi
How are you?

Now let us prefix the whole string with the raw string character r.

print(r"Hi\nHow are you?")

Output:

Hi\nHow are you?

As you can see, the newline character \n is treated as a literal string and not some special character.

Invalid Raw Strings in Python

A single backslash \ is not considered a valid raw string in Python.

print(r"\")

Output:

File "<ipython-input-6-6cdee2fbdda0>", line 1
    print(r"\")
               ^
SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal

Use of Raw Strings in Python

In Python, raw strings are used to return a string when it is not processed at all. It means if a string is prefixed with an r or a raw string and that string consists of any invalid escape character like \x, then an error won’t occur.

Here’s an example code.

print("Hi\xHow are you?")

Output:

 File "<ipython-input-15-1056651b28e1>", line 1
    print("Hi \x How are you?")
          ^
SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 3-4: truncated \xXX escape

Note that the string is not prefixed with r, and there is an invalid escape character in between the string. Hence, an error has occurred.