How to 'raw text' a variable in Python?

python string python-2.7 rawstring

10,825

I did not understand really what you were trying to do, but if you have a string and you want to create a raw text there are two main methods I know of:
raw_text = [str_text]
and
str_text = "%r"%str_text
raw_text = str_text[1:-1].

10,825

Author by

Pyderman

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Updated on July 26, 2022

Comments

Pyderman almost 2 years
I am opening a workbook in openpyxl thus:
```
wb = load_workbook(r'seven.xlsx', data_only=True)
```
The name of the spreadsheet won't always be know in advance, so I need to rewrite this hardcoding to allow for a variable, while still maintaining the r?

If my variable name is sheet, then:
```
wb = load_workbook(sheet, data_only=True)
```
will omit the r.

And obviously I cannot do:
```
wb = load_workbook(r'sheet', data_only=True)
```
How do we achieve the prepending of r to a variable / how do we wrap a vriable within r''?
Pyderman almost 9 years

I invite you to then to try openpyxl.save() on a Windows machine for a file name (such as in the example above) that does not contain backslashes, and omitting r''.
200_success almost 9 years

What is the specific error that you have encountered? Please revise the question to provide complete background information about what you have tried and what failed.
Pyderman almost 9 years

I don't think the example in question adds any context (it's openpyxl.loadworkbook(), but really it could be anything where a raw string is required but I want to pass a variable. Here it is anyway: stackoverflow.com/questions/31362887/…
SiHa almost 9 years

Where in the docs does it say you have to use that? I have used openpyxl in the past (I prefer xlsxwriter now) and did not have to use raw string literals anywhere. Yes, on Windows.
200_success almost 9 years

You must have misdiagnosed the problem. r'all_done.xlsx' is exactly the same as 'all_done.xlsx', since there are no backslashes inside the string literal. If it's unable to write the file, then the cause must be something else. If I had to speculate, maybe the "invalid mode" part is relevant — perhaps you don't have write permission to the current directory?
Pyderman almost 9 years

@SiHa The docs don't say I have to use r''. Experience on Windows shows that I do.
200_success almost 9 years

Experience is no substitute for reasoning. The r prefix just makes it so that you can write r'C:\some\path\to\an.xlsx', which is less cumbersome than the equivalent 'C:\\some\\path\\to\\an.xlsx'.
user8491363 about 4 years

This worked and just saved my night. But could you explain how it works? I've never seen a string operation like that. I'm on Python 3.7 so maybe it's from the older Python?