When you specify a path to the file, and the path contains the characters “\U” or “\u”, you see SyntaxError: (unicode error) ‘unicodeescape’ codec can’t decode bytes in position 2-3: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape.
In this article, let’s discuss what causes this error and different ways to fix it.
Table of Contents
What causes the SyntaxError: (unicode error) ‘unicodeescape’ codec can’t decode bytes in position 2-3: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape?
We can specify the Unicode characters in Python string using the \u or \U character. For example, when we enter \u2167, it treats this as a Unicode character and prints the appropriate value.
Python treats the file paths as Strings. When the Python interpreter sees \U in the string, it thinks of it as a Unicode character and tries to decode the characters in the next few positions. The above error is thrown when no match is found.
with open("C:\Users\paian\Downloads\demo.txt") as f: contents=f.read() print(contents)
Output:
File "C:\Users\paian\PycharmProjects\PythonHowTo\venv\Solutions\unicode_error.py", line 1 with open("C:\Users\paian\Downloads\demo.txt") as f: ^ SyntaxError: (unicode error) 'unicodeescape' codec can't decode bytes in position 2-3: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape
Fix 1: Use a raw prefix.
As per Python Reference Manual,
Unless an `r’ or `R’ prefix is present, escape sequences in strings are interpreted according to rules similar to those used by Standard C.
When you specify a path to the file, the path is considered as a string. For the backslashes to be interpreted rightly, use the prefix r or R.
with open(r"C:\Users\paian\Downloads\demo.txt") as f: contents=f.read() print(contents)
Output:
This is a demo file
Are you seeing the FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory? Click on the link and learn how to fix it.
Fix 2: Use forward slash
You can use a forward slash, instead of a backward slash.
with open("C:/Users/paian/Downloads/demo.txt") as f: contents=f.read() print(contents)
Output:
This is a demo file
Fix 3: Use backslash escape character
If the file path contains a backslash, you can use the escape sequence \\.
Refer to the below example.
with open("C:\\Users\\paian\\Downloads\\demo.txt") as f: contents=f.read() print(contents)
Output:
This is a demo file
Conclusion
In this article, we’ve learned the causes of the SyntaxError: (unicode error) ‘unicodeescape’ codec can’t decode bytes in position 2-3: truncated \UXXXXXXXX escape error. Also, earned that the error can be fixed in the following ways-
- Using prefix r or R.
- Using backslash escape character.
- Using forward slash.
We hope this article has been informative. Thank you for reading.
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