Quoting a quote - small mistake Isn\'t

[derschaumtastenfinder]

Documentation

Within the python tutorial, there is a chapter dealing with quoting a quote. I think, the last example is incorrect here:

'"Isn\'t," they said.' -----> supposed to return '"Isn\'t," they said.'

Shouldn't the return be "Isn't," they said.?

[zware]

No; that example is trying to show that when a string contains both kinds of quote character, one of them has to be quoted. str.__repr__ uses single quotes unless the string contains at least one single quote (and no double quotes), so when both are present any single quotes get escaped. If you were to print the string or write it to a file, it would not contain any backslashes.

If you have any suggestions to make that example clearer, this is not the first report that we've had of this :)

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Sidenote: backslash escaping is fairly ubiquitous, and actually caused problems with your post here. In GitHub issues or other places that accept Markdown, you can use ` characters to surround anything that should be rendered as code, like so:

`'"Isn\'t," they said.'` -----> supposed to return `'"Isn\'t," they said.'`

which becomes

'"Isn\'t," they said.' -----> supposed to return '"Isn\'t," they said.'

[terryjreedy]

The example is a paragraph within this section. One can avoid the backslash on entry by using triple quotes, but the repr() result will not use them.

""""Isn'," they said"""
'"Isn\'," they said'

There are at least 2 problems with explanations here. First, we have not and probably do not want to introduce triple quotes here (which could not be used within a string). Second, I believe we have not and probably do not want to introduce the concept of 'builtin function' and in particular the difference between 'str' and 'repr'.

But we can better explain the difference between a quote as string maker and a quote as a string content character. I suggest replacing/expanding To quote a quote, we need to “escape” it, by preceding it with \. Alternatively, we can use the other type of quotation marks: by/to To insert a quote character in a string delimited by the same quotes, we must "escape" it by preceding it with \. This tells Python to not interpret the quote as ending the string. Alternatively, if we are not using the other type quote within the string, we can use that other quote to delimit the string. Follow with the first 4 of the 5 examples, switching the order of 3 and 4 to match the order of 1 and 2, which start with the \ alternative. Then add another explanatory sentence. If both quotes are used within a string, pick one for the delimiter pair and escape it with \ within. Follow with the fifth example. @derschaumtastenfinder Is this clear enough?

I should hope that non-beginners knowing about triple backquotes will understand why I omitted mention of them in a tutorial for beginning beginners. (Besides adding their own confusion, they are the worse solution in most, perhaps nearly all, cases of strings containing both quote chars.)

Sidenote (continued): in the same places, like here, names with underscores, like __init__, also need backticks to not appear like init (slightly bold init instead of with the underscores).

[StanFromIreland]

Closing as no there has been no response from the issue author for a month.

[terryjreedy]

@zware and @StanFromIreland If either of you think my suggested change is an improvement, we can make it or something similar without waiting for one person to respond. If not, leave it closed.