Print multiple line string in Jupyter notebook

Question

I'm trying to print a multiple line string to a Jupyter notebook. The problem is that \r and \n are printed literally and not interpreted as newlines.

Example:

import os
os.linesep.join(['first line', 'second line'])

I would expect this to print:

first line
second line

But it prints:

first line\r\nsecond line

Solution

You need to actually print it.

import os
print(os.linesep.join(['first line', 'second line']))

Comments

[blokeley]

The Jupyter notebook automatically prints the last statement in each cell. Why does this not respect newlines but print() does?

[vishes_shell]

@blokeley it shows the value, but if you want special symbols to appear, such as '\n' then you need to print.

[BrenBarn]

@blokeley: No, it doesn't (not exactly), and yes you do. The notebook displays the repr of the last value, but print uses str, which is the difference you're seeing.

[blokeley]

OK thanks all for drawing the distinction. It's strange that pandas output prints OK with multiple lines. Hmmm

[juanpa.arrivillaga]

@blokeley why is it strange? Look at the repr(some_dataframe). In other words, the issue isn't newlines per se, but how strings represent newlines when you call repr

[BrenBarn]

@blokeley: The repr of a dataframe is a string with some newlines in it. The repr of a string with a newline in it is a string with a blackslash in it. What you get when you display the pandas value is the repr of the DataFrame, not the repr of the string that is the repr of the DataFrame.

[mins]

Maybe it would be good to give some details about the difference between print and display, as the explanation is all about that. +1