Develop Reference

Replacing everything with a backslash till next white space

As part of preprocessing my data, I want to be able to replace anything that comes with a slash till the occurrence of space with empty string. For example, \fs24 need to be replaced with empty or \qc23424 with empty. There could be multiple occurrences of tags with slashes which I want to remove. I have created a "tags to be eradicated" list which I aim to consume in a regular expression to clean the extracted text.
Input String: This is a string \fs24 and it contains some texts and tags \qc23424. which I want to remove from my string.
Expected output: This is a string and it contains some texts and tags. which I want to remove from my string.
I am using the regular expression based replace function in Python:
udpated = re.sub(r'/\fs\d+', '')
However, this is not fetching the desired result. Alternately, I have built an eradicate list and replacing that from a loop from top to lower number but this is a performance killer.

Assuming a 'tag' can also occur at the very beginning of your string, and avoid selecting false positives, maybe you could use:
\s?(?<!\S)\\[a-z\d]+
And replace with nothing. See an online demo.
\s? - Optionally match a whitespace character (if a tag is mid-string and therefor preceded by a space);
(?<!\S) - Assert position is not preceded by a non-whitespace character (to allow a position at the start of your input);
\\ - A literal backslash.
[a-z\d]+ - 1+ (Greedy) Characters as per given class.

First, the / doesn't belong in the regular expression at all.
Second, even though you are using a raw string literal, \ itself has special meaning to the regular expression engine, so you still need to escape it. (Without a raw string literal, you would need '\\\\fs\\d+'.) The \ before f is meant to be used literally; the \ before d is part of the character class matching the digits.
Finally, sub takes three arguments: the pattern, the replacement text, and the string on which to perform the replacement.
>>> re.sub(r'\\fs\d+', '', r"This is a string \fs24 and it contains...")
'This is a string and it contains...'

Does that work for you?
re.sub(
r"\\\w+\s*", # a backslash followed by alphanumerics and optional spacing;
'', # replace it with an empty string;
input_string # in your input string
)
>>> re.sub(r"\\\w+\s*", "", r"\fs24 hello there")
'hello there'
>>> re.sub(r"\\\w+\s*", "", "hello there")
'hello there'
>>> re.sub(r"\\\w+\s*", "", r"\fs24hello there")
'there'
>>> re.sub(r"\\\w+\s*", "", r"\fs24hello \qc23424 there")
'there'

'\\' matches '\' and 'w+' matches a word until space
import re
s = r"""This is a string \fs24 and it contains some texts and tags \qc23424. which I want to remove from my string."""
re.sub(r'\\\w+', '', s)
output:
'This is a string and it contains some texts and tags . which I want to remove from my string.'

I tried this and it worked fine for me:
def remover(text, state):
removable = text.split("\\")[1]
removable = removable.split(" ")[0]
removable = "\\" + removable + " "
text = text.replace(removable, "")
state = True if "\\" in text else False
return text, state
text = "hello \\I'm new here \\good luck"
state = True
while state:
text, state = remover(text, state)
print(text)

Replace number in a string by bracketed number Python

I have a string like this:
s = k0+k1+k1k2+k2k3+1+12
I want to convert this, such that every number, which follows a letter (k here) becomes surrounded by square brackets:
k[0]+k[1]+k[1]k[2]+k[2]k[3]+1+12
What is a good way to do that?
What I tried: Use replace() function 4 times (but it cannot handle numbers not followed by letters).

Here is one option using re module with regex ([a-zA-Z])(\d+), which matches a single letter followed by digits and with sub, you can enclose the matched digits with a pair of brackets in the replacement:
import re
s = "k0+k1+k1k2+k2k3+1+12"
re.sub(r"([a-zA-Z])(\d+)", r"\1[\2]", s)
# 'k[0]+k[1]+k[1]k[2]+k[2]k[3]+1+12'
To replace the matched letters with upper case, you can use a lambda in the replacement positions to convert them to upper case:
re.sub(r"([a-zA-Z])(\d+)", lambda p: "%s[%s]" % (p.groups(0)[0].upper(), p.groups(0)[1]), s)
# 'K[0]+K[1]+K[1]K[2]+K[2]K[3]+1+12'

How about this?
s = re.sub('([a-z]+)([0-9]+)', r"\1" + '[' + r"\2" + ']', s)

python regex - replace newline (\n) to something else

I'm trying to convert multiple continuous newline characters followed by a Capital Letter to "____" so that I can parse them.
For example,
i = "Inc\n\nContact"
i = re.sub(r'([\n]+)([A-Z])+', r"____\2", i)
In [25]: i
Out [25]: 'Inc____Contact'
This string works fine. I can parse them using ____ later.
However it doesn't work on this particular string.
i = "(2 months)\n\nML"
i = re.sub(r'([\n]+)([A-Z])+', r"____\2", i)
Out [31]: '(2 months)____L'
It ate capital M.
What am I missing here?

EDIT To replace multiple continuous newline characters (\n) to ____, this should do:
>>> import re
>>> i = "(2 months)\n\nML"
>>> re.sub(r'(\n+)(?=[A-Z])', r'____', i)
'(2 months)____ML'
(?=[A-Z]) is to assert "newline characters followed by Capital Letter". REGEX DEMO.

Well let's take a look at your regex ([\n]+)([A-Z])+ - the first part ([\n]+) is fine, matching multiple occurences of a newline into one group (note - this wont match the carriage return \r). However the second part ([A-Z])+ leeds to your error it matches a single uppercase letter into a capturing group - multiple times, if there are multiple Uppercase letter, which will reset the group to the last matched uppercase letter, which is then used for the replace.
Try the following and see what happens
import re
i = "Inc\n\nABRAXAS"
i = re.sub(r'([\n]+)([A-Z])+', r"____\2", i)
You could simply place the + inside the capturing group, so multiple uppercase letters are matched into it. You could also just leave it out, as it doesn't make a difference, how many of these uppercase letters follow.
import re
i = "Inc\n\nABRAXAS"
i = re.sub(r'(\n+)([A-Z])', r"____\2", i)
If you want to replace any sequence of linebreaks, no matter what follows - drop the ([A-Z]) completely and try
import re
i = "Inc\n\nABRAXAS"
i = re.sub(r'(\n+)', r"____", i)
You could also use ([\r\n]+) as pattern, if you want to consider carriage returns

Try:
import re
p = re.compile(ur'[\r?\n]')
test_str = u"(2 months)\n\nML"
subst = u"_"
result = re.sub(p, subst, test_str)
It will reduce string to
(2 months)__ML
See Demo

How to replace .. in a string in python

I am trying to replace this string to become this
import re
s = "haha..hehe.hoho"
s = re.sub('[..+]+',' ', s)
my output i get haha hehe hoho
desired output
haha hehe.hoho
What am i doing wrong?

Test on sites like regexpal: http://regexpal.com/
It's easier to get the output and check if the regex is right.
You should change your regex to something like: '\.\.' if you want to remove only double dots.
If you want to remove when there's at least 2 dots you can use '\.{2,}'.
Every character you put inside a [] will be checked against your expression
And the dot character has a special meaning on a regex, to avoid this meaning you should prefix it with a escape character: \
You can read more about regular expressions metacharacters here: https://www.hscripts.com/tutorials/regular-expression/metacharacter-list.php
[a-z] A range of characters. Matches any character in the specified
range.
. Matches any single character except "n".
\ Specifies the next character as either a special character, a literal, a back reference, or an octal escape.
Your new code:
import re
s = "haha..hehe.hoho"
#pattern = '\.\.' #If you want to remove when there's 2 dots
pattern = '\.{2,}' #If you want to remove when there's at least 2 dots
s = re.sub(pattern, ' ', s)

Unless you are constrained to use regex, then I find the replace() function much simpler:
s = "haha..hehe.hoho"
print s.replace('..',' ')
gives your desired output:
haha hehe.hoho

Change:
re.sub('[..+]+',' ', s)
to:
re.sub('\.\.+',' ', s)

[..+]+ , this meaning in regex is that use the any in the list at least one time. So it matches the .. as well as . in your input. Make the changes as below:
s = re.sub('\.\.+',' ', s)

[] is a character class and will match on anything in it (meaning any 1 .).
I'm guessing you used it because a simple . wouldn't work, because it's a meta character meaning any character. You can simply escape it to mean a literal dot with a \. As such:
s = re.sub('\.\.',' ', s)

Here is what your regex means:
So, you allow for 1 or more literal periods or plus symbols, which is not the case.
You do not have to repeat the same symbol when looking for it, you can use quantifiers, like {2}, which means "exactly 2 occurrences".
You can use split and join, see sample working program:
import re
s = "haha..hehe.hoho"
s = " ".join(re.split(r'\.{2}', s))
print s
Output:
haha hehe.hoho
Or you can use the sub with the regex, too:
s = re.sub(r'\.{2}', ' ', "haha..hehe.hoho")
In case you have cases with more than 2 periods, you should use \.{2,} regex.

How to find a non-alphanumeric character and move it to the end of a string in Python

I have the following string:
"string.isnotimportant"
I want to find the dot (it could be any non-alphanumeric character), and move it to the end of the string.
The result should look like:
"stringisnotimportant."
I am looking for a regular expression to do this job.

import re
inp = "string.isnotimportant"
re.sub('(\w*)(\W+)(\w*)', '\\1\\3\\2', inp)

>>> import re
>>> string = "string.isnotimportant"
#I explain a bit about this at the end
>>> regex = '\w*(\W+)\w*' # the brackets in the regex mean that item, if matched will be stored as a group
#in order to understand the re module properly, I think your best bet is to read some docs, I will link you at the end of the post
>>> x = re.search(regex, string)
>>> x.groups() #remember the stored group above? well this accesses that group.
#if there were more than one group above, there would be more items in the tuple
('.',)
#here I reassign the variable string to a modified version where the '.' is replaced with ''(nothing).
>>> string = string.replace('.', '')
>>> string += x.groups()[0] # here I basically append a letter to the end of string
The += operator appends a character to the end of a string. Since strings don't have an .append method like lists do, this is a handy feature. x.groups()[0] refers to the first item(only item in this case) of the tuple above.
>>> print string
"stringisnotimportant."
about the regex:
"\w" Matches any alphanumeric character and the underscore: a through z, A through Z, 0 through 9, and '_'.
"\W" Matches any non-alphanumeric character. Examples for this include '&', '$', '#', etc.
https://developers.google.com/edu/python/regular-expressions?csw=1
http://python.about.com/od/regularexpressions/a/regexprimer.htm