There is very likely a more reasonable solution than this, but it was the first one that came to mind: IDLE 1.0.3 >>> string = "foo\\n\\0" >>> string = string.replace( "\\n" , "\n" ) >>> string = string.replace( "\\0" , "\0" ) >>> string 'foo\n\x00' >>> print string foo Hope this helps. -- Daniel Bickett dbickett at gmail.com http://heureusement.org/