Escape double and single backslashes in a string in Ruby

Question

I'm trying to access a network path in my ruby script on a windows platform in a format like this.

\\servername\some windows share\folder 1\folder2\

Now If I try to use this as a path, it won't work. Single backslashes are not properly escaped for this script.

path = "\\servername\some windows share\folder 1\folder2\"
d = Dir.new(path)

I tried everything I could think of to properly escape slashes in the path. However I can't escape that single backslash - because of it's special meaning. I tried single quotes, double quotes, escaping backslash itself, using alternate quotes such as %Q{} or %q{}, using ascii to char conversion. Nothing works in a sense that I'm not doing it right. :-) Right now the temp solution is to Map a network drive N:\ pointing to that path and access it that way, but that not a solution.

Does anyone have any idea how to properly escape single backslashes?

Thank you

Answer 1

Just double-up every backslash, like so:

"\\\\servername\\some windows share\\folder 1\\folder2\\"

Answer 2

Try this

puts '\\\\servername\some windows share\folder 1\folder2\\'
#=> \\servername\some windows share\folder 1\folder2\

So long as you're using single quotes to define your string(e.g., 'foo'), a single \ does not need to be escaped. except in the following two cases

1. \\ works itself out to a single \. So, \\\\ will give you the starting \\ you need.
2. The trailing \ at the end of your path will tries to escape the closing quote so you need a \\ there as well.

---

Alternatively,

You could define an elegant helper for yourself. Instead of using the clunky \ path separators, you could use / in conjunction with a method like this:

def windows_path(foo)
  foo.gsub('/', '\\')
end

puts windows_path '//servername/some windows share/folder 1/folder2/'
#=> \\servername\some windows share\folder 1\folder2\

Sweet!