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From: Felipe O <pip.261@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2011 20:04:54 -0500
Subject: Backslash Escapes
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Xref: x330-a1.tempe.blueboxinc.net comp.lang.python:17936

Hi all,
Whenever I take any input (raw_input, of course!) or I read from a
file, etc., any backslashes get escaped automatically. Is there any
elegant way of parsing the backslashes as though they were written in
a python string. The best I have so far right now goes like this:

def parse_backslash_escapes(input_string):
    parts = input_string.split("'''")  # That's ' " " " ' without the spaces
    '"""'.join(eval + p + '"""') for p in parts)

I'm not entirely convinced that it's safe on two accounts.
+ Is that eval statement safe? The input could be coming from an
unfriendly source.
+ Are there any obscure backslash escapes or other tricks I should be aware of?

I guess the alternative is to make a dictionary of all the escapes I
want to support, but that sounds tedious and error-prone.

Thanks,

Felipe