How to Safely Unescape Backslash Escaped Strings in Python?

Undoing Backslash Escaping in Python Strings

Escaping characters with backslashes is often employed in data representation or storage. However, certain scenarios necessitate reverting to the original unescaped representation.

In Python, there exists a built-in function expressly designed for this purpose: decode('string_escape'). This function operates effectively on a string containing escaped characters, replacing them with their original, unescaped counterparts.

Consider the example below:

<code class="python">escaped_str = '"Hello,\nworld!"'
unescaped_str = escaped_str.decode('string_escape')
print(unescaped_str)</code>

The output will be:

"Hello,
world!"

This method is both secure and efficient, unlike alternative approaches such as using eval(), which poses security risks due to the evaluation of potentially untrusted strings. The decode() function offers a secure and robust solution for unescaping backslash-escaped strings in Python, making it the preferred option for this task.

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