How to remove set of characters when a string comprise of “\” and Special characters in python

Question

a = "\\Virtual Disks\\DG2_ASM04\\ACTIVE"

From the above string I would like to get the part "DG2_ASM04" alone. I cannot split or strip as it has the special characters "\\" , "\\D" and "\\A" in it.

Have tried the below and can't get the desired output.

a.lstrip("\Virtual Disks\\").rstrip("\ACTIVE")

the output I have got is: 'G2_ASM04' instead of "DG2_ASM04"

Answer 1

Simply use slicing and escape backslash( \\ )

>>> a.split("\\")[-2]
'DG2_ASM04'

In your case D is also removing because it is occurring more than one time in given string (thus striping D as well). If you tweak your string then you will realize what is happening

>>> a = "\Virtual Disks\XG2_ASM04\ACTIVE"
>>> a.lstrip('\\Virtual Disks\\').rstrip("\\ACTIVE")
'XG2_ASM04'