Print escaped representation of a str - python

How do I print the escaped representation of a string, for example if I have:
s = "String:\tA"
I wish to output:
String:\tA
on the screen instead of
String: A
The equivalent function in java is:
String xy = org.apache.commons.lang.StringEscapeUtils.escapeJava(yourString);
System.out.println(xy);
from Apache Commons Lang

You want to encode the string with the string_escape codec:
print s.encode('string_escape')
or you can use the repr() function, which will turn a string into it's python literal representation including the quotes:
print repr(s)
Demonstration:
>>> s = "String:\tA"
>>> print s.encode('string_escape')
String:\tA
>>> print repr(s)
'String:\tA'
In Python 3, you'd be looking for the unicode_escape codec instead:
print(s.encode('unicode_escape'))
which will print a bytes value. To turn that back into a unicode value, just decode from ASCII:
>>> s = "String:\tA"
>>> print(s.encode('unicode_escape'))
b'String:\\tA'
>>> print(s.encode('unicode_escape').decode('ASCII'))
String:\tA

you can use repr:
print repr(s)
demo
>>> s = "String:\tA"
>>> print repr(s)
'String:\tA'
This will give the quotes -- but you can slice those off easily:
>>> print repr(s)[1:-1]
String:\tA

Give print repr(string) a shot

As ever, its easy in python:
print(repr(s))

print uses str, which processes escapes. You want repr.
>>> a = "Hello\tbye\n"
>>> print str(a)
Hello bye
>>> print repr(a)
'Hello\tbye\n'

Related

Python Unicode Casting on Variable Bug

I've found out this weird python2 behavior related to unicode and variable:
>>> u"\u2730".encode('utf-8').encode('hex')
'e29cb0'
This is the expected result I need, but I want to dynamically control the first part ("u\u2730")
>>> type(u"\u2027")
<type 'unicode'>
Good, so the first part is casted as unicode. Now declaring a string variable and casting it to unicode:
>>> a='20'
>>> b='27'
>>> myvar='\u'+a+b.decode('utf-8')
>>> type(myvar)
<type 'unicode'>
>>> print myvar
\u2027
It seems that now I can use the variable in my original code, right?
>>> myvar.encode('utf-8').encode('hex')
'5c7532303237'
The results, as you can see, is not the original one. It seems that python is treating 'myvar' as string instead of unicode. Do I miss something?
Anyway, my final goal is to loop Unicode from \u0000 to \uFFFF, cast them as string and cast the string as HEX. Is there an easy way?
unichr() in Python 2 or chr() in Python 3 are the ways to construct a character from a number. \uxxxx escapes codes can only be typed directly in code.
Python 2:
>>> a='20'
>>> b='27'
>>> unichr(int(a+b,16))
u'\u2027'
Python 3:
>>> a='20'
>>> b='27'
>>> chr(int(a+b,16))
'‧'
You are confusing the Unicode escape sequence with an the \u characters. It's like confusing r"\n" (or "\\n") with an actual newline. You want to usecodecs.raw_unicode_escape_decode decode the str with 'unicode_escape':
>>> import codecs
>>> a='20'
>>> b='27'
>>> myvar='\u'+a+b.decode('utf-8')
>>> myvar
u'\\u2027'
>>> myvar.decode('unicode_escape')
(u'\u2027', 6)
>>> print(myvar.decode('unicode_escape')[0])
‧

How do you decode an ascii string in python?

For example, in your python shell(IDLE):
>>> a = "\x3cdiv\x3e"
>>> print a
The result you get is:
<div>
but if a is an ascii encoded string:
>>> a = "\\x3cdiv\\x3e" ## it's the actual \x3cdiv\x3e string if you read it from a file
>>> print a
The result you get is:
\x3cdiv\x3e
Now what i really want from a is <div>, so I did this:
>>> b = a.decode("ascii")
>>> print b
BUT surprisingly I did NOT get the result I want, it's still:
\x3cdiv\x3e
So basically what do I do to convert a, which is \x3cdiv\x3e to b, which should be <div>?
Thanks
>>> a = rb"\x3cdiv\x3e"
>>> a.decode('unicode_escape')
'<div>'
Also check out some interesting codecs.
With python 3.x, you would adapt Kabie answer to
a = b"\x3cdiv\x3e"
a.decode('unicode_escape')
or
a = b"\x3cdiv\x3e"
a.decode('ascii')
both give
>>> a
b'<div>'
What is b prefix for ?
Bytes literals are always prefixed with 'b' or 'B'; they produce an
instance of the bytes type instead of the str type. They may only
contain ASCII characters; bytes with a numeric value of 128 or greater
must be expressed with escapes.

Python: convert a dot separated hex values to string?

In this post: Print a string as hex bytes? I learned how to print as string into an "array" of hex bytes now I need something the other way around:
So for example the input would be: 73.69.67.6e.61.74.75.72.65 and the output would be a string.
you can use the built in binascii module. Do note however that this function will only work on ASCII encoded characters.
binascii.unhexlify(hexstr)
Your input string will need to be dotless however, but that is quite easy with a simple
string = string.replace('.','')
another (arguably safer) method would be to use base64 in the following way:
import base64
encoded = base64.b16encode(b'data to be encoded')
print (encoded)
data = base64.b16decode(encoded)
print (data)
or in your example:
data = base64.b16decode(b"7369676e6174757265", True)
print (data.decode("utf-8"))
The string can be sanitised before input into the b16decode method.
Note that I am using python 3.2 and you may not necessarily need the b out the front of the string to denote bytes.
Example was found here
Without binascii:
>>> a="73.69.67.6e.61.74.75.72.65"
>>> "".join(chr(int(e, 16)) for e in a.split('.'))
'signature'
>>>
or better:
>>> a="73.69.67.6e.61.74.75.72.65"
>>> "".join(e.decode('hex') for e in a.split('.'))
PS: works with unicode:
>>> a='.'.join(x.encode('hex') for x in 'Hellö Wörld!')
>>> a
'48.65.6c.6c.94.20.57.94.72.6c.64.21'
>>> print "".join(e.decode('hex') for e in a.split('.'))
Hellö Wörld!
>>>
EDIT:
No need for a generator expression here (thx to thg435):
a.replace('.', '').decode('hex')
Use string split to get a list of strings, then base 16 for decoding the bytes.
>>> inp="73.69.67.6e.61.74.75.72.65"
>>> ''.join((chr(int(i,16)) for i in inp.split('.')))
'signature'
>>>

How to convert hex string "\x89PNG" to plain text in python

I have a string "\x89PNG" which I want to convert to plain text.
I referred http://love-python.blogspot.in/2008/05/convert-hext-to-ascii-string-in-python.html
But I found it a little complicated. Can this be done in a simpler way?
\x89PNG is a plain text. Just try to print it:
>>> s = '\x89PNG'
>>> print s
┴PNG
The recipe in the link does nothing:
>>> hex_string = '\x70f=l\x26hl=en\x26geocode=\x26q\x3c'
>>> ascii_string = reformat_content(hex_string)
>>> hex_string == ascii_string
True
The real hex<->plaintext encoding\decoding is a piece of cake:
>>> s.encode('hex')
'89504e47'
>>> '89504e47'.decode('hex')
'\x89PNG'
However, you may have problems with strings like '\x70f=l\x26hl=en\x26geocode=\x26q\x3c', where '\' and 'x' are separate characters:
>>> s = '\\x70f=l\\x26hl=en\\x26geocode=\\x26q\\x3c'
>>> print s
\x70f=l\x26hl=en\x26geocode=\x26q\x3c
In this case string_escape encoding is really helpful:
>>> print s.decode('string_escape')
pf=l&hl=en&geocode=&q<
More about encodings - http://docs.python.org/library/codecs.html#standard-encodings

Python Replace \\ with \ [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Process escape sequences in a string in Python
(8 answers)
Closed 7 months ago.
So I can't seem to figure this out... I have a string say, "a\\nb" and I want this to become "a\nb". I've tried all the following and none seem to work;
>>> a
'a\\nb'
>>> a.replace("\\","\")
File "<stdin>", line 1
a.replace("\\","\")
^
SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal
>>> a.replace("\\",r"\")
File "<stdin>", line 1
a.replace("\\",r"\")
^
SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal
>>> a.replace("\\",r"\\")
'a\\\\nb'
>>> a.replace("\\","\\")
'a\\nb'
I really don't understand why the last one works, because this works fine:
>>> a.replace("\\","%")
'a%nb'
Is there something I'm missing here?
EDIT I understand that \ is an escape character. What I'm trying to do here is turn all \\n \\t etc. into \n \t etc. and replace doesn't seem to be working the way I imagined it would.
>>> a = "a\\nb"
>>> b = "a\nb"
>>> print a
a\nb
>>> print b
a
b
>>> a.replace("\\","\\")
'a\\nb'
>>> a.replace("\\\\","\\")
'a\\nb'
I want string a to look like string b. But replace isn't replacing slashes like I thought it would.
There's no need to use replace for this.
What you have is a encoded string (using the string_escape encoding) and you want to decode it:
>>> s = r"Escaped\nNewline"
>>> print s
Escaped\nNewline
>>> s.decode('string_escape')
'Escaped\nNewline'
>>> print s.decode('string_escape')
Escaped
Newline
>>> "a\\nb".decode('string_escape')
'a\nb'
In Python 3:
>>> import codecs
>>> codecs.decode('\\n\\x21', 'unicode_escape')
'\n!'
You are missing, that \ is the escape character.
Look here: http://docs.python.org/reference/lexical_analysis.html
at 2.4.1 "Escape Sequence"
Most importantly \n is a newline character.
And \\ is an escaped escape character :D
>>> a = 'a\\\\nb'
>>> a
'a\\\\nb'
>>> print a
a\\nb
>>> a.replace('\\\\', '\\')
'a\\nb'
>>> print a.replace('\\\\', '\\')
a\nb
r'a\\nb'.replace('\\\\', '\\')
or
'a\nb'.replace('\n', '\\n')
Your original string, a = 'a\\nb' does not actually have two '\' characters, the first one is an escape for the latter. If you do, print a, you'll see that you actually have only one '\' character.
>>> a = 'a\\nb'
>>> print a
a\nb
If, however, what you mean is to interpret the '\n' as a newline character, without escaping the slash, then:
>>> b = a.replace('\\n', '\n')
>>> b
'a\nb'
>>> print b
a
b
It's because, even in "raw" strings (=strings with an r before the starting quote(s)), an unescaped escape character cannot be the last character in the string. This should work instead:
'\\ '[0]
In Python string literals, backslash is an escape character. This is also true when the interactive prompt shows you the value of a string. It will give you the literal code representation of the string. Use the print statement to see what the string actually looks like.
This example shows the difference:
>>> '\\'
'\\'
>>> print '\\'
\
In Python 3 it will be:
bytes(s, 'utf-8').decode("unicode_escape")
This works on Windows with Python 3.x:
import os
str(filepath).replace(os.path.sep, '/')
Where: os.path.sep is \ on Windows and / on Linux.
Case study
Used this to prevent errors when generating a Markdown file then rendering it to pdf.
path = "C:\\Users\\Programming\\Downloads"
# Replace \\ with a \ along with any random key multiple times
path.replace('\\', '\pppyyyttthhhooonnn')
# Now replace pppyyyttthhhooonnn with a blank string
path.replace("pppyyyttthhhooonnn", "")
print(path)
#Output...
C:\Users\Programming\Downloads

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