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pythonstringrawstring

Why can't I end a raw string with a backslash?

I am confused here, even though raw strings convert every \ to \\ but when this \ appears in the end it raises error.

>>> r'so\m\e \te\xt'
'so\\m\\e \\te\\xt'

>>> r'so\m\e \te\xt\'
SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal

Update:

This is now covered in Python FAQs as well: Why can’t raw strings (r-strings) end with a backslash?

Solution

  • You still need \ to escape ' or " in raw strings, since otherwise the python interpreter doesn't know where the string stops. In your example, you're escaping the closing '.

    Otherwise:

    r'it wouldn\'t be possible to store this string'
r'since it'd produce a syntax error without the escape'

    Look at the syntax highlighting to see what I mean.