Python : Issue is checking os.path.exists

Question

I am trying to check if a particular directory path exists or not.

below is my code

temp_path = '\\diwali\NSID-HYD-01\college'
meta_path = os.path.realpath(temp_path)
print(os.path.exists(meta_path))

When I am trying to execute this, it is throwing error as below

temp_path = '\\diwali\NSID-HYD-01\college'
#          ^

error

SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 8-9: malformed \N character escape

Help me resolve this.

Answer 1

Python interprets backslashes ( \\ ) inside strings as leading characters for escape codes. For example \\n is a line-feed character.

If you want it to treat them as simply backslashes, add an r before the string, like so:

temp_path = r'\\diwali\NSID-HYD-01\college'

Answer 2

another method is using two backslashes \\\\ before N like this:

temp_path = '\\diwali\\NSID-HYD-01\college'

If you are get it from UI (as you mentioned in comments) you can replace \\ with \\\\ :

temp_path = '\\diwali\NSID-HYD-01\college'.replace("\\", "\\\\")
# '\\diwali\\NSID-HYD-01\\college'

Answer 3

You best bet would be escaping all backslashes:

path_string.replace('\\\\', '\\\\\\\\')

This will replace single backslash with two backslashes (Since a single \\ would escape the quote you have to escape thats why its two and four backslashes)