Escape characters in output in Python - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Escape characters in output

📖 Scenario: Imagine you are writing a message that includes special characters like quotes and new lines. You want to show this message exactly as it is, including the special characters, in your program's output.

🎯 Goal: You will create a string with escape characters and print it so the output shows the special characters correctly.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a string variable with escape characters for quotes and new lines

Use the correct escape sequences like \" for double quotes and \n for new lines

Print the string so the output matches the expected format

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Escape characters are used when you want to include special symbols or formatting inside text, like quotes, new lines, or tabs, which is common in writing messages, logs, or formatted output.

💼 Career

Understanding escape characters helps in programming tasks like generating reports, handling file paths, or preparing text for display or storage, which are common in many software development jobs.

1

Create a string with quotes and new lines

Create a string variable called message with the exact value: She said, \"Hello!\"\nWelcome to the escape characters lesson.

Python

# Create the string variable called message with the exact text including escape characters
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use \" to include double quotes inside the string and \n for a new line.

2

Add a second line with a tab escape character

Add to the message string a new line with a tab character and the text: \tThis line is indented. Use the plus sign + to join the strings.

Python

message = "She said, \"Hello!\"\nWelcome to the escape characters lesson." 
# Add the tabbed line to message using +
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use \n for new line and \t for tab inside the string you add.

3

Print the message variable

Write a print statement to display the message variable exactly as it is.

Python

message = "She said, \"Hello!\"\nWelcome to the escape characters lesson." + "\n\tThis line is indented."
# Print the message variable
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use print(message) to show the string with escape characters interpreted.

4

Print the raw string with escape characters visible

Print the message variable so that the output shows the escape characters like \n and \t as text, not as new lines or tabs. Use the repr() function inside the print statement.

Python

message = "She said, \"Hello!\"\nWelcome to the escape characters lesson." + "\n\tThis line is indented."
print(message)
# Print the raw string using repr()
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use print(repr(message)) to show the string with escape characters visible.