Python raw string literal

It is a string prefixed with the letter r or R.

It hanges the interpretation of backslashes '\' within the string:

• in standard string '\' is an escape character
• in raw string it does not escape

Examples:

# Standard string literal
standard_path = "C:\\Users\\Documents\\file.txt"
print(standard_path) # C:\Users\Documents\file.txt

# Raw string literal
raw_path = r"C:\Users\Documents\file.txt"
print(raw_path) # C:\Users\Documents\file.txt

Invalid raw strings example - a raw string can’t end with an odd number of backslash characters:

# Invalid raw string examples
invalidrs1 = r'\' # the end quote is missing from the output since it’s being escaped by the
                  # backslash character resulting in an unterminated string literal error

invalidrs2 = r'ab\\\' # the first two backslashes will escape each other, and the third one will
                      # try to escape the end quote, resulting in an unterminated string literal error

To include a literal backslash at the end of a raw string, it must be represented as a double backslash '\\'