ArcMap Python Code gives SyntaxError?

Question

I've encountered an issue implementing a code into ArcMap. The original code was:

for fc in fclist:
... arcpy.Clip_analysis(fc, r’C:\GIS_LabManual\Lab10_Manual\Lab10_data\Arb_clip_poly.shp’, r’C:\GIS_LabManual\Lab10_Manual\Lab10_results\’+fc)

The error it shows is "Parsing error SyntaxError: invalid syntax (line 2)."

I then tried to adjust it to the following code (which also had the same error):

for fc in fclist:
... arcpy.Clip_analysis(fc,r’F:GIS_Joseph\Lab10_Joseph\Data_Joseph\Lab_10_data\Lab_10_data\Arb_clip_poly.shp’,r’F:GIS_Joseph\Lab10_Joseph\Results_Joseph\’+fc)

Could you tell what the error might be?

Answer 1

I think your single quote characters around the file paths are causing the error. You begin the string with an end quote and end the string with another end quote. Instead of r’C:\path’ try r'C:\path'.

Also, make sure you include a slash after the drive letter in your file path, like you did the first time but not the second time: C:\path as opposed to F:path.

Answer 2

Your other issue is that your raw string ends with a backslash. Python doesn't like this.

x=r'c:\'
  File "<stdin>", line 1
    x=r'c:\'
           ^
SyntaxError: EOL while scanning string literal

Instead, use os.path.join to put your file paths together:

import os.path
for fc in fclist:
    arcpy.Clip_analysis(fc, r’C:\GIS_LabManual\Lab10_Manual\Lab10_data\Arb_clip_poly.shp’, os.path.join(r’C:\GIS_LabManual\Lab10_Manual\Lab10_results', fc))