“EOL while scanning single-quoted string”? (backslash in string)

Question

import os
xp1 = \"\\Documents and Settings\\\"
xp2 = os.getenv(\"USERNAME\")
print xp1+xp2

Gives me error

 File \"1.py\", line 2 
x         


        

Answer 1

You can use the os.path.expanduser function to get the path to a users home-directory. It doesn't even have to be an existing user.

>>> import os.path
>>> os.path.expanduser('~foo')
'C:\\Documents and Settings\\foo'
>>> print os.path.expanduser('~foo')
C:\Documents and Settings\foo
>>> print os.path.expanduser('~')
C:\Documents and Settings\MizardX

"~user" is expanded to the path to user's home directory. Just a single "~" gets expanded to the current users home directory.