Python converting '\' to '\\'

Question

I am writing a program to sort a list fo input strings (song names). Those songnames contains latex chars like $\\lambda$, which i want to get sorted like \'lambda\' instead, s

Answer 1

As already suggested you should escape your backslash:

'$\\lambda$'

Another alternative is to use raw strings, which are not subject to special character substitution:

r'$\lambda$'

When you have many backslashes raw strings tend to be clearer.