Need of using 'r' before path-name while reading a csv file with pandas

Question

a newbie here. Could someone tell me why do we use an \'r\' in some cases before the path name in the following function?:

df = pd.read_csv(r\"Path_name\")
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Answer 1

• This solution by Denziloe does a perfect job of explaining why r may precede a path string.
  • r'C:\Users\username' works
  • r'C:\Users\username\' does not, because the trailing \ escapes the '.
    • r'C:\Users\username\' + file, where file = 'test.csv' also won't work
    • Results in SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal
• pandas methods that will read a file, such as pandas.read_csv will accept a str or a pathlib object for a file path.
• If you need to iterate through a list a file names you can add them with an f-string as well.
  • num = 6, f'I have {num} files' interprets as 'I have 6 files', is an example of using an f-string.

import pandas as pd

files = ['test1.csv', 'test2.csv', 'test3.csv']

df_list = list()
for file in files:
    df_list.append(pd.read_csv(rf'C:\Users\username\{file}'))  # path with f-string

df = pd.concat(df_list)