How to escape curly braces in f-strings?

Escaping Curly Braces in f-strings

In Python, f-strings (formatted string literals) provide a convenient way to embed expressions within string literals. However, when you need to include literal curly braces ({}) in your f-string, you need to escape them to prevent them from being interpreted as part of the expression.

Escaping Curly Braces

To escape curly braces in an f-string, you need to double the curly braces. This tells Python to treat the curly braces as literal characters rather than as part of the expression.

Here's an example:

name = "Alice"
age = 25
print(f"My name is {{name}} and I am {{age}} years old.")

Output:

My name is {name} and I am {age} years old.

In the example above, the curly braces around name and age are escaped by doubling them, so they are treated as literal characters and not as part of the expression.

Nested Expressions

If you need to include a nested expression within an f-string, you can use the double curly braces to escape the inner expression as well:

x = 10
y = 20
print(f"The sum of {{x + y}} is {x + y}.")

Output:

The sum of {x + y} is 30.

In this case, the outer curly braces {{x + y}} are escaped to prevent them from being interpreted as part of the expression, while the inner expression x + y is evaluated and inserted into the f-string.

Practice in LabEx VM

Mindmap

Here's a Mermaid diagram that illustrates the process of escaping curly braces in f-strings:

graph TD A[F-string with Expressions] --> B{Curly Braces?} B --> |Yes| C[Double the Curly Braces] B --> |No| D[Evaluate the Expression] C --> D D --> E[Rendered F-string]

The diagram shows that when an f-string contains expressions, the process checks for the presence of curly braces. If curly braces are found, they are escaped by doubling them before the expression is evaluated. The resulting rendered f-string is then displayed.

In summary, to escape curly braces in f-strings, you need to double the curly braces to prevent them from being interpreted as part of the expression. This allows you to include literal curly braces in your f-strings as needed.