How do I add a backslash after every character in a string? - c++

Question

I need to transform a literal filepath (C:/example.txt) to one that is compatible with the various WinAPI Registry functions (C://example.txt) and I have no idea on how to go about doing it.
I've broken it down to having to add a backslash after a certain character (/ in this case) but i'm completely stuck after that.
Guidance and Code Examples will be greatly appreciated.
I'm using C++ and VS2012.

Answer 1

In C++, strings are made up of individual characters, like "foo". Strings can be composed of printable characters, such as the letters of the alphabet, or non-printable characters, such as the enter key or other control characters.
You cannot type one of these non-printable characters in the normal way when populating a string. For example, if you want a string that contains "foo" then a tab, and then "bar", you can't create this by typing:
fooTABbar
because this will simply insert that many spaces -- it won't actually insert the TAB character.
You can specify these non-printable characters by "escaping" them out. This is done by inserting a back slash character (\) followed by the character's code. In the case of the string above TAB is represented by the escape sequence \t, so you would write: "foo\tbar".
The character \ is not itself a non-printable character, but C++ (and C) recognize it to be special -- it always denotes the beginning of an escape sequence. To include the character "\" in a string, it has to itself be escaped, with \\.
So in C++ if you want a string that contains:
c:\windows\foo\bar
You code this using escape sequences:
string s = "c:\\windows\\foo\\bar"

Answer 2

\\ is not two chars, is one char:
for(size_t i = 0, sz = sPath.size() ; i < sz ; i++)
if(sPath[i]=='/') sPath[i] = '\\';
But be aware that some APIs work with \ and some with /, so you need to check in which cases to use this replacement.

Answer 3

If replacing every occurrence of a forward slash with two backslashes is really what you want, then this should do the job:
size_t i = str.find('/');
while (i != string::npos)
{
string part1 = str.substr(0, i);
string part2 = str.substr(i + 1);
str = part1 + R"(\\)" + part2; // Use "\\\\" instead of R"(\\)" if your compiler doesn't support C++11's raw string literals
i = str.find('/', i + 1);
}
EDIT:
P.S. If I misunderstood the question and your intention is actually to replace every occurrence of a forward slash with just one backslash, then there is a simpler and more efficient solution (as #RemyLebeau points out in a comment):
size_t i = str.find('/');
while (i != string::npos)
{
str[i] = '\\';
i = str.find('/', i + 1);
}
Or, even better:
std::replace_if(str.begin(), str.end(), [] (char c) { return (c == '/'); }, '\\');