FAQ: Introduction to Strings - Escape Characters

Frequently Asked Questions Python FAQ
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This community-built FAQ covers the “Escape Characters” exercise from the lesson “Introduction to Strings”.

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This exercise can be found in the following Codecademy content:

Computer Science

FAQs on the exercise Escape Characters

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A post was split to a new topic: What if I want a backslash in my string?

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In this example, why are escape characters starting before the left insider quotation mark and ending before the right insider quotation mark, as in:

password = "theycallme(backslash)"crazy(backslash)“91”

but NOT:

password = “theycallme(backslash)“crazy”(backslash)91”

Why shouldn’t the escape character wrap the right quotation mark too? Pardon the fact I couldn’t use actual backslashes in the post as they don’t show up for some reason.

5

To preserve code formatting in forum posts, see: How do I format code in my posts?

password = "theycallme\"crazy\"91"

password = "theycallme\"crazy"\91"

The backslash doesn’t escape a block of characters. It only escapes a single character.

In the first version, the first backslash will escape the quote before crazy, whereas the second backslash will escape the quote after crazy.

In the second version, the first backslash will escape the quote before crazy, but the quote after crazy will not be escaped.

So we are not trying to wrap "crazy" with backslashes. Instead the backslash is supposed to be placed before the specific character we wish to escape.

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6

Thank you very much!

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