Regular expression confusion

[York]

I have two backslash - a. and I want to replace them with one backslash,
but I failed:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/sre.py", line 143, in sub
return _compile(pattern, 0).sub(repl, string, count)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/sre.py", line 258, in _subx
template = _compile_repl(template, pattern)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/sre.py", line 245, in _compile_repl
raise error, v # invalid expression
sre_constants.error: bogus escape (end of line)
anybody knows why?

Thanks,

York

 

[John Machin]

I have two backslash - a. and I want to replace them with one backslash,
but I failed:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/sre.py", line 143, in sub
return _compile(pattern, 0).sub(repl, string, count)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/sre.py", line 258, in _subx
template = _compile_repl(template, pattern)
File "/usr/lib/python2.3/sre.py", line 245, in _compile_repl
raise error, v # invalid expression
sre_constants.error: bogus escape (end of line)

anybody knows why?

Yep. There are *two* levels of escaping happening (1) Python compiler
(2) re compiler (in the first two args, but of course only Python in
the 3rd).
To get your single backslash you need to start out with four cooked or
two raw:

| >>> re.sub(r'\\\\', '\\\\', '\\\\')
'\\'
| >>> re.sub(r'\\\\', r'\\', '\\\\')
'\\'

Cheers,
John

 

[York]

Oh, that's right, the second arg is escaped by re compiler too.

Thank you, John.

York

 

[John Machin]

Oh, that's right, the second arg is escaped by re compiler too.

No, that's wrong, you [should] do the escaping, the compiler unescapes


Cheers,
John

 

[Fredrik Lundh]

I have two backslash - a. and I want to replace them with one backslash,
but I failed:

John has already sorted the RE-specific part of the problem, but it's
also worth noting that using the RE engine for literal strings is over-
kill; an ordinary replace is easier to use and faster:
'\\'

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