Suppose I have the following string in Python:

>>> example=""" ... \nthird line ... [\t] <-tab in there ... [\n] <-\\n in there ... \v vtab ... 1\b2 should be only '2' ... this\rthat <- should be only 'that' ... """ 

If I print that, the various escaped characters (like \t for a tab) are interpolated into a human readable form:

>>> print example third line [ ] <-tab in there [ ] <-\n in there vtab 2 should be only '2' that <- should be only 'that' 

What if I want to only produce a string with the various escape codes expanded or interpreted without printing it? Somthing like:

>>> exp_example = example.expandomethod() 

(I have looked at the various string methods, decode, and format but none are working as in this example.)

Suppose I have the following string in Python:

>>> example=""" ... \nthird line ... [\t] <-tab in there ... [\n] <-\\n in there ... \v vtab ... 1\b2 should be only '2' ... this\rthat <- should be only 'that' ... """ 

If I print that, the various escaped characters (like \t for a tab) are interpolated into a human readable form:

>>> print example third line [ ] <-tab in there [ ] <-\n in there vtab 2 should be only '2' that <- should be only 'that' 

What if I want to only produce a string with the various escape codes expanded or interpreted without printing it? Somthing like:

>>> exp_example = example.expandomethod() 

(I have looked at the various string methods, decode, and format but none are working as in this example.)

Edit

OK -- Thanks for the help for the thick scull on my part. I was convinced that these strings were being parsed, which they are, but it the display of them that was fooling me.

I worked this out in my own mind:

>>> cr='\012' # CR or \n in octal >>> len(cr) 1 >>> '123'+cr '123\n' >>> '123\012' == '123\n' True