python unexpected character after line continuation character

Question

Problem :

My Python program is giving below error

python unexpected character after line continuation character

Answer 1

Here backslash \ is the line continuation character the error message is talking about, and after it, only newline characters/whitespace are allowed

print "This is a very long string that doesn't fit" + \
      "on a single line"

Outside of a string, a backslash can only appear in this way. For division, you want a slash: /.

If you want to write a verbatim backslash in a string, escape it by doubling it: "\\"

Further Readings:

https://github.com/maxpumperla/deep_learning_and_the_game_of_go/issues/5

Answer 2

The backslash is the line continuous character, about the error message is talking and after it, only the new line characters and white spaces are allowed. Before the next non-whitespace continuous the “interrupted” line.

print “This is the very long sentence and does not seems to be fit “ \

           “on a single line”.

Multiple string literals:

If the multiple string literals are written sequentially, then they can be concatenated into one string like;

s = 'aaa' 'bbb'

print(s)

# aaabbb

We can write the long string into multiple lines of code as follows;

'%E3%83%97%E3%83%AD%E3%82%B0%E3%83'\

    '%A9%E3%83%9F%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B0%E8%A8%80%E8%AA%9E'

print(s)

# https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%97%E3%83%AD%E3%82%B0%E3%83%A9%E3%83%9F%E3%83%B3%E3%82%B0%E8%A8%80%E8%AA%9E

Strings surrounded by “”:

Only the string literals that are surrounded by ‘’ or “” can be concatenated if they are written consecutively. Note that in this case of variables error can occur;

 s_var = 'xxx'

# s = 'aaa' s_var 'bbb'

# SyntaxError: invalid syntax

Solution:

Use the + operator to concatenate the variables, or the variables and string literals;

s = 'aaa' + s_var + 'bbb'

print(s)

# aaaxxxbbb

You need to use the + operator to concatenate the variables, even if they are separated by a backslash (\).

s = 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa'\

    + s_var\

    + 'bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb'

print(s)

# aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaxxxbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb

 

Answer 3

Your issue is that you miss understood the syntax of strings, you did this:

'Text '\n'another text'

As you can see here, To write strings, you can use single quotes or double-quotes. And to add a new line:

"String\n"

What you did is that you ended the first string ‘Text ‘, then you put the newline character without strings quotes, then started a new string. Python’s syntax doesn’t work in this way, I know this is a bit of confusing, but take your time understanding it.