How to 'de-slashify' a string?

[AK]

Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Sat, 22 Aug 2009 04:20:23 -0400, AK wrote:
> 
>> Hi, if I have a string '\\303\\266', how can I convert it to '\303\266'
>> in a general way?
> 
> It's not clear what you mean.
> 
> Do you mean you have a string '\\303\\266', that is:
> 
> backslash backslash three zero three backslash backslash two six six
> 
> If so, then the simplest way is:
> 
>>>> s = r'\\303\\266'  # note the raw string
>>>> len(s)
> 10
>>>> print s
> \\303\\266
>>>> print s.replace('\\\\', '\\')
> \303\266
> 
> 
> Another possibility:
> 
>>>> s = '\\303\\266'  # this is not a raw string
>>>> len(s)
> 8
>>>> print s
> \303\266
> 
> So s is:
> backslash three zero three backslash two six six
> 
> and you don't need to do any more.

Well, I need the string itself to become '\303\266', not to print
that way. In other words, when I do 'print s', it should display
unicode characters if my term is set to show them, instead of
showing \303\266.

> 
> 
>> The problem I'm running into is that I'm connecting with pygresql to a
>> postgres database and when I get fields that are of 'char' type, I get
>> them in unicode, but when I get fields of 'byte' type, I get the text
>> with quoted slashes, e.g. '\303' becomes '\\303' and so on.
> 
> Is pygresql quoting the backslash, or do you just think it is quoting the 
> backslashes? How do you know? E.g. if you have '\\303', what is the 
> length of that? 4 or 5?

Length is 4, and I need it to be length of 1. E.g.:

 >>> s = '\303'
 >>> s
'\xc3'
 >>> x = '\\303'
 >>> x
'\\303'
 >>> len(x)
4
 >>> len(s)
1


What I get from pygresql is x, what I need is s. Either by asking 
pygresql to do this or convert it afterwards. I can't do 
replace('\\303', '\303') because it can be any unicode character.

> 
> 


-- 
AK