Develop Reference

Can't replace character "\"

I've been working on a program that reads out an specific PDF and converts the data to an Excel file. The program itself already works, but while trying to refine some aspects I ran into a problem. What happens is the modules I'm working with read directories with simple slashes dividing each folder, such as:
"C:/Users/UserX"
While windows directories are divided by backslashes, such as:
"C:\Users\UserX"
I thought using a simple replace would work just fine:
directory.replace("\" ,"/")
But whenever I try to run the program, the \ isn't identified as a string. Instead it pops up as orange in the IDE I'm working with (PyCharm). Is there anyway to remediate this? Or maybe another useful solution?

In general you should work with the os.path package here.
os.getcwd() gives you the current directory, you can add a subfolder of it via more arguments, and put the filename last.
import os
path_to_file = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), "childFolder", filename)

In Python, the '\' character is represented by '\\':
directory.replace("\\" ,"/")

Just try adding another backslash.
First of all you need to pass "C:\Users\UserX" as a raw string. Use
directory=r"C:\Users\UserX"
Secondly, suppress the backslash using a second backslash.
directory.replace("\\" ,"/")
All of this is required as in python the backslash (\) is a special character known as an escape character.

Try this:
import os
path = "C:\\temp\myFolder\example\\"
newPath = path.replace(os.sep, '/')
print(newPath)
Output:<< C:/temp/myFolder/example/ >>

I want to replace "-" for "\" but it doesn't work as I expected

I have a md file named "2021-05-06.md".
I tried to make the name of the file "2021/05/06.md" by using Python Library "os".
i="2021-05-06.md"
os.rename(i,i.replace("-","/"))
Actually, the code above is just a example but I get the Error telling "Path not found".
It seems like the "/" are recognized as a part of path.
How should I avoid this error.

I would strongly advise against trying to use slashes in your filename for many reasons.
If you would rather disregard this advice then you might be able to use the unicode divison slash character (u"\u2215").
i="2021-05-06.md"
os.rename(i,i.replace("-",u"\u2215"))
Whether or not this works may depend on operating system.
https://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/2215/index.htm

import os
filepath="your file path"
r=filepath.repalce('-','/')
os.rename(filepath,r)

Python special characters encoding problems in PATH

Given this simple code, I receive faulty paths if the userfolder contains any special characters. For example the returned path is expected to be "C:\Users\Aoë\", but the ë is instead shown as a ‰ or a \u2030 depending on what is done with encoding. This then messes up the rest of my code because of attempts to write to nonexistent paths.
I ran into this problem trying to run kivy, but it seems to be happening globally.
from pathlib import Path
home = str(Path.home())
print(home)
I've spent quite some time, but haven't been able to reach a solution. This is with the latest python, x64 on windows with eclipse. No matter what I do, I cannot get python to handle special characters properly.

Try 'r' tag at the beginning, it ignores the special characters:
home = r'%s'%str(Path.home())

Why is glob ignoring some directories?

I'm trying to find all *.txt files in a directory with glob(). In some cases, glob.glob('some\path\*.txt') gives an empty string, despite existing files in the given directories. This is especially true, if path is all lower-case or numeric.
As a minimal example I have two folders a and A on my C: drive both holding one Test.txt file.
import glob
files1 = glob.glob('C:\a\*.txt')
files2 = glob.glob('C:\A\*.txt')
yields
files1 = []
files2 = ['C:\\A\\Test.txt']
If this is by design, is there any other directory name, that leads to such unexpected behaviour?
(I'm working on win 7, with Python 2.7.10 (32bit))
EDIT: (2019) Added an answer for Python 3 using pathlib.

The problem is that \a has a special meaning in string literals (bell char).
Just double backslashes when inserting paths in string literals (i.e. use "C:\\a\\*.txt").
Python is different from C because when you use backslash with a character that doesn't have a special meaning (e.g. "\s") Python keeps both the backslash and the letter (in C instead you would get just the "s").
This sometimes hides the issue because things just work anyway even with a single backslash (depending on what is the first letter of the directory name) ...

I personally avoid using double-backslashes in Windows and just use Python's handy raw-string format. Just change your code to the following and you won't have to escape the backslashes:
import glob
files1 = glob.glob(r'C:\a\*.txt')
files2 = glob.glob(r'C:\A\*.txt')
Notice the r at the beginning of the string.
As already mentioned, the \a is a special character in Python. Here's a link to a list of Python's string literals:
https://docs.python.org/2/reference/lexical_analysis.html#string-literals

As my original answer attracted more views than expected and some time has passed. I wanted to add an answer that reliably solves this kind of problems and is also cross-plattform compatible. It's in python 3 on Windows 10, but should also work on *nix systems.
from pathlib import Path
filepath = Path(r'C:\a')
filelist = list(filepath.glob('*.txt'))
--> [WindowsPath('C:/a/Test.txt')]
I like this solution better, as I can copy and paste paths directly from windows explorer, without the need to add or double backslashes etc.

Open windows explorer at a specific network location in Python

I have tried so many variants of a theme to get this explorer window open at the P:\ drive, from what my little knowledge tells me, the fact the path to the folder is anywhere but the C:\ drive means it fails (it works with C:) so perhaps the path is wrong? the code below shows some of the tries i have made but still no luck, "P:" is mapped the same on all machines.
def Open_Win_Explorer_and_Select_Dir():
import subprocess
fldrname = os.path.basename(currentproject.get())
print(fldrname)
#subprocess.Popen('c:\windows\EXPLORER.EXE', cwd=(P:/Projects 2013/)
#subbprocess.Popen('c:\\windows\\EXPLORER.EXE' cwd=('P:\\Projects_2013\\')fldrname)
#subprocess.Popen(r'C:/Windows/explorer.exe', cwd=r'//WRDBSVR/Project_Data/Projects_2013/'+fldrname)
subprocess.Popen('explorer /n, /select r"\\192.168.0.27\\Project_Data\\Projects_2013\\"'+fldrname)
#subprocess.Popen('explorer /n, /select r"P:\\Project_Data\\Projects_2013\\"'+fldrname)

well to open My pc (for windows) try:
import subprocess
subprocess.Popen('explorer ""')
"#if subprocess.Popen('explorer "{0}".format(full_path)') is struck at pc\my documents.
where full_path=os.path.join("your/path")"

Appart from the fact that Ashish Nitin Patil's answer is definitly better, as using a variable for paths is always a good idea, you have a problem with your quotes:
# This line is not correct
'explorer /n, /select r"\\192.168.0.27\\Project_Data\\Projects_2013\\"'+fldrname
# ^you start a new string without ending previous one
# this one is correct
'explorer /n, /select ' + r'\192.168.0.27\Project_Data\Projects_2013\' + fldrname
# ^first ending string start
Besides, using raw strings (r"xxx") means that \ will not escape characters, so you shall not double them. If you want to double them, you do not need prepend r.
Last remark: take care to avoid string concatenation (+) when working with paths; you should use os.path.join() instead.

Following should do the job.
import subprocess
subprocess.Popen('explorer "{0}"'.format(full_folder_path))
Update -
Tested on my system -
full_path = os.path.join("P:/Project_Data/Projects_2013/",fldrname)
print full_path # Verify that it is correct
subprocess.Popen('explorer "{0}"'.format(full_path))