I'm concatenating a filepath to open an image with plt.imshow() as follows:

from pathlib import Path
import numpy as np 
import pandas as pd
from scipy.io import loadmat
import pprint
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.image as mpimg
import os

folder = Path('D:\ ... \emotic') 
    #Note that \ ... \ stands for my filepath
original_database = Path(annotations_dict['train']['original_database'][0][50][0][0][0][0])
filename = Path(annotations_dict['train']['filename'][0][50][0])

image_path = os.path.join(folder, original_database, 'images', filename)

img = mpimg.imread(image_path)
imgplot = plt.imshow(img)
plt.show()

print(image_path)
print(repr(image_path))

But I consistently get the following error message: UnidentifiedImageError*: cannot identify image file 'D:\\ ... \\ ... \\ ... \\ ... \\ ... \\emotic\\framesdb\\images\\frame_aztc78d4kjclxv9e.jpg'*

So obviously it can't read the filepath because all the backslashes are doubled. I've found many posts online explaining why this happens (\ is an escape character), but none explaining how to solve this. How do I enforce that the filepath passed on to the plt.imshow() function contains only single backslashes? I've tried solving this issue using the following methods:

• os.path.normpath( ... ) ==> does nothing;

• image_path.replace('\\', '\') ==> also does nothing;

• using r'...' to enforce a raw string with single backslashes ==> still does nothing.

Note also that print(image_path) gives the filepath with single backslashes, while print(repr(image_path)) gives the filepath with double backslashes. And I kinda get the difference and why this is (kinda). But I don't know how to pass on the one with the single backslashes to plt.imshow(), and every method I try ends up giving me the same "double slash" error.

Any help would be greatly appreciated :D

EDIT 1 : The filepath named in the error message is correct. If I take that filepath and replace all the double slashes by single slashes, then put this into my file explorer, the correct image comes up.

EDIT 2 [SOLVED] : Turns out the error wasn't due to single vs. double backslashes in the filepath, but rather to a problem with the matplotlib.image.imread() function that for some reason can't access my image database and triggers the error. If I use an image reader from the PIL library instead, everything works fine:

Solved using this:

from PIL import Image
plt.imshow(Image.open(image_path))

instead of this:

plt.imshow(mpimg.imread(image_path))

Thanks to everyone for helping me isolate the issue!

I made an automated filemanager with Python. The original target was for Linux. Today, when I tried to use in Windows the path become like this, "C:/Users/reddit_lonely/Dropbox/reddit_lonely/reddit_lonely-pending-note-test\\test\\folder".

I have been looking through solutions over the internet.

• https://pythonconquerstheuniverse.wordpress.com/2008/06/04/gotcha-%E2%80%94-backslashes-in-windows-filenames/.

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/11924706/how-to-get-rid-of-double-backslash-in-python-windows-file-path-string

But nothing solve my problem. I see that the main culprit is when path.join() just directly concatenate both path with \ and / together without checking the legality of path.

I think I could make this work by delving around my codes for couple of days. And code path checking manually based on operating system. However, I would like to know if there are more straightforward ways that I could have missed.

SOLVED! The problem was because long file name. Although after I cross checked back in my Linux machine everything works fine.