How to append '\\?\' to the front of a file path in Python

Question

I'm trying to work with some long file paths (Windows) in Python and have come across some problems. After reading the question here, it looks as though I need to append '\\?\' to the front of my long file paths in order to use them with os.stat(filepath). The problem I'm having is that I can't create a string in Python that ends in a backslash. The question here points out that you can't even end strings in Python with a single '\' character.

Is there anything in any of the Python standard libraries or anywhere else that lets you simply append '\\?\' to the front of a file path you already have? Or is there any other work around for working with long file paths in Windows with Python? It seems like such a simple thing to do, but I can't figure it out for the life of me.

Answer 1

"\\\\?\\" should give you exactly the string you want.

Longer answer: of course you can end a string in Python with a backslash. You just can't do so when it's a "raw" string (one prefixed with an 'r'). Which you usually use for strings that contains (lots of) backslashes (to avoid the infamous "leaning toothpick" syndrome ;-))

Answer 2

Even with a raw string, you can end in a backslash with:

>>> print r'\\?\D:\Blah' + '\\'
\\?\D:\Blah\

or even:

>>> print r'\\?\D:\Blah' '\\'
\\?\D:\Blah\

since Python concatenates to literal strings into one.