Python syntaxerror: unexpected character after line continuation character

Question

I'm just starting python so am most likely just doing something stupid. I'm reading data off of a table and need to put them into columns in a txt file. I cannot convince my code to create a new line.

Here is my code-

file = open("test_m.rdb")
table = open('table.txt', 'w+')

trash = file.readline()

trash = file.readline()

data = file.readline()
i = data.split()
flux = i[2]
observed = i[4]
table.write(flux + " " + observed,)

while 1:
    line = file.readline()
    i = line.split()
    try:
        flux = i[2]
        observed = i[4]
    except IndexError:
        break
    table.write(\nflux + " " + observed)
table.close()

And the error reads-

File "PlotRdbFile.py", line 24
    table.write(\nflux + " " + observed)
                                   ^
SyntaxError: unexpected character after line continuation character

Thank you in advance for finding my mistake.

possible duplicate of syntaxerror: "unexpected character after line continuation character in python" math — smathy
– smathy, Commented Mar 8, 2013 at 21:57

Levon · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-07 16:09:29Z

5

table.write(\nflux + " " + observed)

should be

table.write("\n" + flux + " " + observed)

or alternatively

table.write("\n{} {}".format(flux, observed))

More information about format() if you are curious.

edited Jun 7, 2012 at 16:09

answered Jun 7, 2012 at 16:03

Levon

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3 Comments

marie Over a year ago

Thank you! I have a followup question. I tried table.write("\n" + flux + " " + observed) before I posted this question. I thought it wasn't working properly because when I open up the txt file with notepad, it puts all the data on one line. When I tried it a second time after you answered my question, I opened it with Word and it is formatted correctly but it still isn't formatted correctly when I open the file in Notepad. Do you know why that is?

marie Over a year ago

And thank you for the format() link. It's going to be very helpful.

Levon Over a year ago

@Elerrina different word processor/editors will display data sometimes differently unfortunately (mostly a matter how they handle newlines). I use emacs, probably not the most user-friendly editor for my programming, not sure what I can recommend to you. I've heard good things about notepad++ notepad-plus-plus.org maybe you can check it out.

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