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I'm using python to populate a tex template with arbitrary strings - and I would like to escape the strings so they're interpreted and displayed properly inside the tex file (rather than having them mess up my formatting).

Where can I find a python code snippet, which will use the tex rules for escaping an arbitrary string?

To clarify, I want to do this: 

[arbitrary string] --->{latex flags}[arbitrary string]{latex flags}

from inside of a python program, such that I can run latex on:

{latex flags}[arbitrary string]{latex flags}

and latex will not complain about strange characters inside [arbitrary strings]

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According to this StackOverflow post: stackoverflow.com/questions/7495693/…, you can just use the r modifier to a string. So r"\foo" will take care of the escaping. – Matthew Leingang May 14 at 0:38
That post talks about going the other way - escaping latex code so it is interpreted as a regular string in python. I'm looking for the reverse - to escape a string, using python code, so that it's interpreted verbatim by latex. – blueberryfields May 14 at 0:44
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should I post this on stackoverflow instead? – blueberryfields May 14 at 0:47
Oh, I see. I think "arbitrary" is going to be a problem. If you could tell latex to how to properly interpret an arbitrary string there would be no need for latex markup. – Matthew Leingang May 14 at 0:48
This is possibly a duplicate of tex.stackexchange.com/questions/885/… – Papiro May 14 at 0:51
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closed as too localized by Thorsten, Stefan Kottwitz♦ May 14 at 5:36

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