CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythoncarriage-return
alex.jordan
alex.jordan

Reputation: 368

Python write a string to a file and keep \r

In python (2.7 or 3), say I have a string with \r in it, and I want to write it to a file and keep the \r. The default behavior is to replace the \r with \n. How can I do this? For example:

f= open("file.txt","w+")
f.write('foo\rbar')
f.close()

Leaves me with a file with text foo\nbar. I've read about universal newline handling, and I think I can use newline='' as an option for open() when opening a file with \r if I want to keep the \r. But write() does not accept the newline option, and I'm at a loss.

I have an application where the \r is meaningful, distinct from \n. And I need to be able to write to file and keep \r as it is.

Upvotes: 5

Views: 3659

Answers (4)

blhsing
blhsing

Reputation: 106445

You can open the file with newline='' so that on output, no translation takes place. The write method does not have a newline parameter because the file object is already initialized with it:

with open('file.txt', 'w', newline='') as f:
    f.write('foo\rbar')

Excerpt from the documentation:

When writing output to the stream, if newline is None, any '\n' characters written are translated to the system default line separator, os.linesep. If newline is '' or '\n', no translation takes place.

Upvotes: 0

lmiguelvargasf
lmiguelvargasf

Reputation: 69705

Open the file in binary mode, appending a b to the mode you want to use.

with open("file.txt","wb") as f:
    f.write(b'foo\rbar')

It is better you use with open... instead of opening and closing the file by yourself.

Upvotes: 4

Işık Kaplan
Işık Kaplan

Reputation: 2982

Everyone has their preferences apparently.

I'm just going to add an r to your code to make the string a raw string: 

f= open("file.txt","w+")
f.write(r'foo\rbar') # right before the string
f.close()

And you are good to go.

Upvotes: -1

algorythms
algorythms

Reputation: 1585

read and write in binary format. 

f= open("file.txt","wb")
f.write(b'foo\rbar')
f.close()

Upvotes: 0

Related Questions