Python 3.7.4: 're.error: bad escape \s at position 0'

Question

My program looks something like this:

import re
# Escape the string, in case it happens to have re metacharacters
my_str = \"The quick brown fox jumped\"
esc         


        

Answer 1

I guess you might be trying to do:

import re
# Escape the string, in case it happens to have re metacharacters
my_str = "The\\ quick\\ brown\\ fox\\ jumped"
escaped_str = re.escape(my_str)
# "The\\ quick\\ brown\\ fox\\ jumped"
# Replace escaped space patterns with a generic white space pattern
print(re.sub(r"\\\\\\\s+", " ", escaped_str))

Output 1

The quick brown fox jumped

If you might want to have literal \s+, then try this answer or maybe:

import re
# Escape the string, in case it happens to have re metacharacters
my_str = "The\\ quick\\ brown\\ fox\\ jumped"
escaped_str = re.escape(my_str)
print(re.sub(r"\\\\\\\s+", re.escape(r"\s") + '+', escaped_str))

Output 2

The\s+quick\s+brown\s+fox\s+jumped

Or maybe:

import re
# Escape the string, in case it happens to have re metacharacters
my_str = "The\\ quick\\ brown\\ fox\\ jumped"
print(re.sub(r"\s+", "s+", my_str))

Output 3

The\s+quick\s+brown\s+fox\s+jumped

---

If you wish to simplify/modify/explore the expression, it's been explained on the top right panel of regex101.com. If you'd like, you can also watch in this link, how it would match against some sample inputs.

---

RegEx Circuit

jex.im visualizes regular expressions:

Demo