[Tutor] How to replace the '\'s in a path with '/'s?

[Steven D'Aprano]

Sandip Bhattacharya wrote:

> Generally, converting slashes manually should be kept at a minimum. You
> should be using library functions as much as possible. The experts here
> can correct me here, but this is a roundabout way I would be doing this:

str.replace('\\', '/') is a perfectly fine library function to use to 
convert backslashes.

[...]
>     # Use raw strings so that backslash doesnt matter
>     path=r'C:\Users\Dick\Desktop\Documents\Notes\College Notes.rtf'

That's not quite true. Even with raw strings, you can't write:

path = r'C:\Users\Dick\Desktop\Documents\Notes\'

Try it and see what happens.


[...]
> I am not happy with the loop to collect the components. But I couldn't
> find a single path function which splits a path into all the components
> in one go.

Just use str.split.

Be prepared to filter out empty path components if the user enters a 
path with doubled-up backslashes:

C:\Users\Dick\\Desktop

but that's no real difficulty.



-- 
Steven