Printing a raw string with a folder separator at the end, duplicates the separator

[krulah]

There are two acceptable ways to define a path to a directory/folder, with and without the end separator

path_wo_sep = r"c:\temp"
path_w_sep = r"c:\temp\\"

print(path_wo_sep)
print(path_w_sep)

Output:
c:\temp
c:\temp\\

How can one get a following output?

Output:
c:\Temp\

Related: Am I able to print odd number of backslashes using a raw string?

print(r"\\")

Output:
\\

print(r"\\\\")

Output:
\\\\

Is this a matter of any postprocessing?

[rob101]

You could use string slicing, but I don't know if this is what you have in mind.

path_wo_sep = r"c:\temp"
path_w_sep = r"c:\temp\\"

print(path_wo_sep)
print(path_w_sep[:-1])

Output:
c:\temp
c:\temp\

[krulah]

Dear rob101, thank you for the suggestion. First, I would have to check, whether slicing makes sense, i.e, Is there a double backslash at the end of the string? The input of the directory may come from the user and it cannot be predected.

I can replace using a regex

print(re.sub(r"(?<=[\\])(\\)", r"", r"dir1\dir2\\dir3\\\dir4\\\\"))

and end up with an expected:

Output:
dir1\dir2\dir3\dir4\

I understand that it is a cosmetic issue. The operating system is going to collapse multiple backslashes into a single one, or ignore the superfluous. The script works anyway.

[krulah]

Or just check the input string

path = re.sub(r"(\\)$", r"", path)

If path has ending backslash, that backslash is going to be stripped off

[DeaD_EyE]

You can use forward-slashes and Pathlib:

import os
from pathlib import Path


p = Path("C:/Temp")
# the leading / or \\ is not required

print(p.drive)
print(p.name)
print(p.parts)
print("p.is_dir():", p.is_dir())
# does not exist ono my installation, so it's False


# use of env-varbiables
# building Path to User Python installation
# %localappdata%/Programs/Python/PythonXXX

python_path = Path(os.getenv("localappdata"), "Programs\Python\Python310")
print(python_path, python_path.exists())

python_exe = python_path / "python.exe"
print(python_exe, python_exe.exists())

Output:
C:
Temp
('C:\\', 'Temp')
p.is_dir(): False
C:\Users\Andre\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python310 True
C:\Users\Andre\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python310\python.exe True

A better overview is here: https://realpython.com/python-pathlib/

[snippsat]

How can one get a following output?

Just turn \🧬around,it will work fine.

>>> path_w_sep = "c:/temp/"
>>> path_w_sep.
'c:/temp/'

As mentiom bye DeaD_EyE can use Pathlib

import pathlib

main_dir = r'c:\temp'
sub_dir = 'sub_dir'
fname = 'filename.tsv'
file_path = pathlib.PurePath(main_dir, sub_dir, fname)
print(file_path)

Output:
c:\temp\sub_dir\filename.tsv

If look at it will see that is a PureWindowsPath with / this way.
print() will show it the normal way.

>>> file_path
PureWindowsPath('c:/temp/sub_dir/filename.tsv')
>>> print(file_path)
c:\temp\sub_dir\filename.tsv