python - Display special characters when using print statement

Question

I would like to display the escape characters when using print statement. E.g.

a = "Hello\tWorld\nHello World"
print a
Hello   World
Hello World

I would like it to display: "Hello\tWorld\nHello\sWorld"

Answer 1

Use repr:

a = "Hello\tWorld\nHello World"
print(repr(a))
# 'Hello\tWorld\nHello World'

Note you do not get \s for a space. I hope that was a typo...?

But if you really do want \s for spaces, you could do this:

print(repr(a).replace(' ',r'\s'))

Answer 2

Do you merely want to print the string that way, or do you want that to be the internal representation of the string? If the latter, create it as a raw string by prefixing it with r: r"Hello\tWorld\nHello World".

>>> a = r"Hello\tWorld\nHello World"
>>> a # in the interpreter, this calls repr()
'Hello\\tWorld\\nHello World'
>>> print a
Hello\tWorld\nHello World

Also, \s is not an escape character, except in regular expressions, and then it still has a much different meaning than what you're using it for.