Too much escaping of backslashes from inline Python?

[winniehell]

Bug description

when printing backslashes from inline Python they get escaped too often

Steps to reproduce

---
title: "Empty"
engine: jupyter
---

Backslash: `{python} "a\\b"` `{python} r"c\\d"`

Expected behavior

Expected output:

Backslash: a\b c\\d

Actual behavior

Actual output:

Backslash: a\\\\b c\\\\\\\\d

Your environment

$ nixos-version
24.05.20241012.a3f9ad6 (Uakari)

Quarto check output

quarto check

Quarto 99.9.9
[✓] Checking environment information...
      Quarto cache location: ~/.cache/quarto
[✓] Checking versions of quarto binary dependencies...
      Pandoc version 3.4.0: OK
      Dart Sass version 1.70.0: OK
      Deno version 1.46.3: OK
      Typst version 0.11.0: OK
[✓] Checking versions of quarto dependencies......OK
[✓] Checking Quarto installation......OK
      Version: 99.9.9
      commit: 80bf6b5848bf644de3a4d59e26b5eb067375986a
      Path: ~/quarto-cli/package/dist/bin

[✓] Checking tools....................OK
      TinyTeX: (not installed)
      Chromium: (not installed)

[✓] Checking LaTeX....................OK
      Using: Installation From Path
      Path: /run/current-system/sw/bin
      Version: undefined

[✓] Checking basic markdown render....OK

[✓] Checking Python 3 installation....OK
      Version: 3.12.5
      Path: ~/quarto-playground/.venv/bin/python3
      Jupyter: 5.7.2
      Kernels: python3

[✓] Checking Jupyter engine render....OK

[✓] Checking R installation...........(None)

      Unable to locate an installed version of R.
      Install R from https://cloud.r-project.org/

[winniehell]

workaround:

```{python}
from IPython.display import Markdown
```

`{python} Markdown(r"e\\f")`

[cderv]

Using Markdown() is not a workaround but the expected behavior. We document it at https://quarto.org/docs/computations/inline-code.html#markdown-output

By default, the output of inline expressions is treated as ordinary text (i.e. markdown within it is not rendered). Any markdown-like syntax within the output of inline expressions will be automatically escaped.

Using Markdown() is the way to avoid this escaping.

Hope it helps understand.

[winniehell]

@cderv no, it does not help: the Python expression "a\\b" rendered as ordinary text is just a\b. if that is automatically escaped prior to insertion in Markdown, that would result in a\\b. after rendering as PDF or HTML, that should again become a\b (and not a\\\\b).

while this is a minor thing (because there is an easy way around it), I still think this is unexpected behavior.

[cderv]

Thanks for the added precision; Let's look a little closer to this then...

Let's add keep-md: true and also adding block execution so see Python results

---
title: "Empty"
engine: jupyter
keep-md: true
---

Backslash: `{python} "a\\b"` `{python} r"c\\d"`

```{python}
"a\\b"
```

```{python}
r"c\\d"
```

In the intermediate md we get for the inline

Backslash: a\\\\\\\\b c\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\d

and for the block

```
'a\\b'
```

```
'c\\\\d'
```

This is to produce

As the doc says, "Any markdown-like syntax within the output of inline expressions will be automatically escaped."
and example give is

`{python} '**not bold**'`

which output \*\*not bold\*\* leading to **bold** in the output.

So we would indeed expect a\\b to be a\\b in the output, and not a\\\\b - too much escaped string here.

I think I understand your report now. Is that it ?
Sorry for closing to quick

[winniehell]

no worries! thank you for the quick response and for guiding me through the processing 🙂