strange behaviour of colon within string

[StarWing]

On Oct 19, 9:15 pm, khany <sharif.k... at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 19 Oct, 13:44, khany <sharif.k... at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > hello all,
>
> > i am relatively new to python and i am trying to convert a php app i
> > have over to it using googleapps.
>
> > anyway here is the problem. i poll ebay API which has in its XML "<?
> > xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><findItemsAdvancedRequest
> > xmlns="http://www.ebay.com/marketplace/search/v1/services">  .... "
>
> > however it fails to create the string UNLESS i remove the colon (:) in
> > the http section. i tried to substitute it with chr(58) but it errors
> > the same without showing why. does anyone know what i am doing wrong?
> > is this peculiar to googleapps?
>
> > thanks
>
> OK
>
> first thanks for replying so soon (most other groups out there take
> days)
>
> here is the code
>
> ========
>   xml = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> \
>     <findItemsAdvancedRequest xmlns="http://www.ebay.com/marketplace/
> search/v1/services"> \
>     <categoryId>%(category)i</categoryId> \
>     <keywords>%(searchtext)s</keywords> \
>     <paginationInput> \
>       <pageNumber>%(page)i</pageNumber> \
>       <entriesPerPage>10</entriesPerPage> \
>     </paginationInput> \
>     </findItemsAdvancedRequest>' % \
>     {'category':9834, 'searchtext':"bmw", 'page':1}
>   print xml
> ========
>
> if i run this, the page is blank (even the source) with no errors or
> anything. if i remove the colon from the string (after the http) it
> prints the string on the browser fine.
>
> HTH

you can use a tri-quote string or make sure all lines end with \:
xml1 = """<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
    <findItemsAdvancedRequest xmlns="http://www.ebay.com/marketplace/\
search/v1/services">
    <categoryId>%(category)i</categoryId>
    <keywords>%(searchtext)s</keywords>
    <paginationInput>
      <pageNumber>%(page)i</pageNumber>
      <entriesPerPage>10</entriesPerPage>
    </paginationInput>
    </findItemsAdvancedRequest>""" % \
    {'category':9834, 'searchtext':"bmw", 'page':1}

xml2 = '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>\n\
    <findItemsAdvancedRequest xmlns="http://www.ebay.com/marketplace/\
search/v1/services">\n\
    <categoryId>%(category)i</categoryId>\n\
    <keywords>%(searchtext)s</keywords>\n\
    <paginationInput>\n\
      <pageNumber>%(page)i</pageNumber>\n\
      <entriesPerPage>10</entriesPerPage>\n\
    </paginationInput>\n\
    </findItemsAdvancedRequest>' % \
    {'category':9834, 'searchtext':"bmw", 'page':1}

print xml1
print xml2