replace multiple non-space characters in python string

Question

Uniting multiple spaces to one space character in a python string is doable (here), but what about uniting non-space-characters?

>>> name = "the__answer____is___42"
>>> print("_".join(list(filter(lambda x: x != '', name.split("_")))))
the_answer_is_42

Is there any simpler solution?

Strictly speaking, you don't have to call `list` here; it's just (possibly) more efficient to do so, based on how `str.join` and `list` each handle arbitrary iterable values. — chepner, Mar 22 '22 at 13:24
You can also use `None` in place of `lambda x: x !=''` (as it represents a predicate that accepts truthy values). — chepner, Mar 22 '22 at 13:26

AashvikT · Accepted Answer · 2022-03-23T10:05:04.763

My approach is:

split() the original string into a list by '_'.

Remove all empty strings from this list by if not x==''.

Use '_'.join() on this list.

That would look like this (working code example) :

# original string
targetString = "the__answer____is___42"

# answer
answer = '_'.join([x for x in targetString.split('_') if not x==''])

# printing the answer
print(answer)

You can make that more compact by putting it into a function:

def shrink_repeated_characters(targetString,character):
    return character.join([x for x in targetString.split(character) if not x==''])

In shrink_repeated_characters() given above, the parameter targetString is the original string, and character is the character you want to merge, eg. '_'.

Ivan Kwong · Answer 2 · 2022-03-22T15:32:43.757

0

According to your reference:

>> import re
>> re.sub('_+', '_', 'the__answer____is___42')
'the_answer_is_42'

# if u have more than one non-space char
>> re.sub(r'([_ ])+', r"\1", 'the__answer____is___42')
'the_answer_is_42'

>> re.sub(r'([_ ])+', r"\1", 'the  answer    is   42')
'the answer is 42'

edited Mar 22 '22 at 15:32

answered Mar 22 '22 at 15:27

Ivan Kwong

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replace multiple non-space characters in python string

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