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Convert data into comma separated values

How do i convert data into comma separated values, i want to convert like
I have this data in excel on single cell
"ABCD x3 ABC, BAC x 3"
Want to convert to
ABCD,ABCD,ABCD,ABC,BAC,BAC,BAC
can't find an easy way to do that.
I am trying to solve it in python so i can get a structured data

Hi Zeeshan to try and sort the string into usable data while also multiplying certain parts of the string is kind of tricky for me.
the best solution I can think of is kind of gross but it seems to work. hopefully my comments aren't too confusing <3
import re
data = "ABCD x3 AB BAC x2"
#this will split the string into a list that you can iterate through.
Datalist = re.findall(r'(\w+)', data)
#create a new list for the final result
newlist = []
for object in Datalist:
#for each object in the Datalist list
#if the object starts with 'x'
if re.search("x.*", object):
#convert the multiplier to type(string) and then split the x from the multiplier number string
xvalue = str(object).split('x')
#grab and remove the last item added to the newlist because it hasnt been multiplied.
lastitem = newlist.pop()
#now we can add the last item back in by as many times as the x value
newlist.extend([lastitem] * int(xvalue[1]))
else:
#if the object doesnt start with an x then we can just add it to the list.
newlist.extend([object])
#print result
print(newlist)
#re.search() - looks for a match in a string
#.split() - splits a string into multiple substrings
#.pop() - removes the last item from a list and returns that item.
#.extend() - adds an item to the end of a list
keep in mind that to find the multiplier its looking for x followed by a number (x1). if there is a space for example = (x 1) then it will match x but it wont return a value because there is a space.

there might be multiple ways around this issue and I think the best fix will be to restructure how the data is Formatted into the cell.
here are a couple of ways you can work with the data. it wont directly solve your issue but I hope it will help you think about how you approach it (not being rude I don't actually have a good way to handle your example <3 )
split() will split your string as character 'x' and return a list of substrings you can iterate over.
data = 'ABCD ABCD ABCD ABC BAC BAC BAC'
splitdata = data.split(' ')
print(splitdata)
#prints - ['ABCD', 'ABCD', 'ABCD', 'ABC', 'BAC', 'BAC', 'BAC']
you could also try and match strings from the data
import re
data2 = "ABCD x3 ABC BAC x3"
result = []
for match in re.finditer(r'(\w+) x(\d+)', data2):
substring, count = match.groups()
result.extend([substring] * int(count))
print(result)
use re.finditer to go through the string and match the data with the following format = '(\w+) x(\d+)'
each match then gets added to the list.
'\w' is used to match a character.
'\d' is used to match a digit.
'+' is the quantifier, means one or more.
so we are matching = '(\w+) x(\d+)',
which broken down means we are matching (\w+) one or more characters followed by a 'space' then 'x' followed by (\d+) one or more digits
so because your cell data is essentially a string followed by a multiplier then a string followed by another string and then another multiplier, the data just feels too random for a general solution and i think this requires a direct solution that can only work if you know exactly what data is already in the cell. that's why i think the best way to fix it is to rework the data in the cell first. im in no way an expert and this answer is to help you think of ways around the problem and to add to the discussion :) ,if someone wants to correct me and offer a better solution to this I would love to know myself.

Why does "\n" appear in my string output?

I have elements that I've scraped off of a website and when I print them using the following code, they show up neatly as spaced out elements.
print("\n" + time_element)
prints like this
F
4pm-5:50pm
but when I pass time_element into a dataframe as a column and convert it to a string, the output looks like this
# b' \n F\n \n 4pm-5:50pm\n
I am having trouble understanding why it appears so and how to get rid of this "\n" character. I tried using regex to match the "F" and the "4pm-5:50pm" and I thought this way I could separate out the data I need. But using various methods including
# Define the list and the regex pattern to match
time = df['Time']
pattern = '[A-Z]+'
# Filter out all elements that match the pattern
filtered = [x for x in time if re.match(pattern, x)]
print(filtered)
I get back an empty list.
From my research, I understand the "\n" represents a new line and that there might be invisible characters. However, I'm not understanding more about how they behave so I can get rid of them/around them to extract the data that I need.
When I pass the data to csv format, it prints like this all in one cell
F
4pm-5:50pm
but I still end up in the similar place when it comes to separating out the data that I need.

you can use the function strip() when you extract data from the website to avoid "\n"

Check if a variable substring is in a string

I receive an input string having values expressed in two possible formats. E.g.:
#short format
data = '"interval":19'
>>> "interval":19
#extended format
data = '"interval":{"t0":19,"tf":19}'
>>> "interval":{"t0":19,"tf":19}
I would like to check whether a short format is used and, in case, make it extended.
Considering that the string could be composed of multiple values, i.e.
data = '"interval":19,"interval2":{"t0":10,"tf":15}'
>>> "interval":19,"interval2":{"t0":10,"tf":15}
I cannot just say:
if ":{" not in data:
#then short format is used
I would like to code something like:
if ":$(a general int/float/double number)" in data:
#extract the number
#replace ":{number}" with the extended format
I know how to code the replacing part.
I need help for implementing if condition: in my mind, I model it like a variable substring, in which the variable part is the number inside it, while the rigid format is the $(value name) + ":" part.
"some_value":19
^ ^
rigid format variable part
EDIT - WHY NOT PARSE IT?
I know the string is "JSON-friendly" and I can convert it into a dictionary, easily accessing then the values.
Indeed, I already have this solution in my code. But I don't like it since the input string could be multilevel and I need to iterate on the leaf values of the resulting dictionary, independently from the dictionary levels. The latter is not a simple thing to do.
So I was wondering whether a way to act directly on the string exists.

If you replace all keys, except t0, tf, followed by numbers, it should work.
I show you an example on a multilevel string, probably to be put in a better shape:
import re
s = '"interval": 19,"t0interval2":{"t0":10,"tf":15},{"deeper": {"other_interval":23}}'
gex = '("(?!(t0|tf)")\w+":)\s*(\d+)'
new_s = re.sub(gex, r'\1 {"t0": \3, "tf": \3}', s)
print(new_s)
>>> print(new_s)
"interval": {"t0": 19, "tf": 19},"t0interval2":{"t0":10,"tf":15},{"deeper": {"other_interval": {"t0": 23, "tf": 23}}}

You could use a regular expression. ("interval":)(\d+) will look for the string '"interval":' followed by any number of digits.
Let's test this
data = '"interval":19,"interval2":{"t0":10,"tf":15},"interval":25'
result = re.sub(r'("interval":)(\d+)', r'xxx', data)
print(result)
# -> xxx,"interval2":{"t0":10,"tf":15},xxx
We see that we found the correct places. Now we're going to create your target format. Here the matched groups come in handy. In the regular expression ("interval":) is group 1, (\d+) is group 2.
Now we use the content of those groups to create your wanted result.
data = '"interval":19,"interval2":{"t0":10,"tf":15},"interval":25'
result = re.sub(r'("interval":)(\d+)', r'\1{"t0":\2,"tf":\2}', data)
print(result)
# -> "interval":{"t0":19,"tf":19},"interval2":{"t0":10,"tf":15},"interval":{"t0":25,"tf":25}
If there are floating point values involved you'll have to change (\d+) to ([.\d]+).
If you want any Unicode standard word characters and not only interval you can use the special sequence \w and because it could be multiple characters the expression will be \w+.
data = '"interval":19,"interval2":{"t0":10,"tf":15},"Monty":25.4'
result = re.sub(r'("\w+":)([.\d]+)', r'\1{"t0":\2,"tf":\2}', data)
print(result)
# -> "interval":{"t0":19,"tf":19},"interval2":{"t0":{"t0":10,"tf":10},"tf":{"t0":15,"tf":15}},"Monty":{"t0":25.4,"tf":25.4}
Dang! Yes, we found "Monty" but now the values from the second part are found too. We'll have to fix this somehow. Let's see. We don't want ("\w+") if it's preceded by { so were going to use a negative lookbehind assertion: (?<!{)("\w+"). And after the number part (\d+) we don't want a } or an other digit so we're using a negative lookahead assertion here: ([.\d]+)(?!})(?!\d).
data = '"interval":19,"interval2":{"t0":10,"tf":15},"Monty":25.4'
result = re.sub(r'(?<!{)("\w+":)([.\d]+)(?!})(?!\d)', r'\1{"t0":\2,"tf":\2}', data)
print(result)
# -> "interval":{"t0":19,"tf":19},"interval2":{"t0":10,"tf":15},"Monty":{"t0":25.4,"tf":25.4}
Hooray, it works!
Regular expressions are powerful and fun, but if you start to add more constraints this might become unmanageable.

Python 2.7: How to split on first occurrence?

I am trying to split a string I extract on the first occurrence of a comma. I have tried using the split, but something is wrong, as it doesn't split.
for i in range(len(items)):
alldata = items[i].getText().encode('utf-8').split(',', 1)
csvfile.writerow(alldata)
The variable items contains the data I extract from an URL. The output in the CSV file is put in one column. I want it to be on two columns. An example of the data (alldata) I get in the CSV file, looks like this:
['\n\n\n1958\n\n\nGeorge Lees\n']
Using this data as an example, I need the year 1958 to be on one column, and the name George Lees to be on another column instead of the new lines.
EDIT
Forgot to mention what I meant with the commas. The reason why I mentioned the commas is that I also tried splitting on whitespaces. When I did that I got the data:
['1958', 'George', 'Lees']
So what I tried to achieve was to split the data on the first comma occurrence. That's why I did split(',', 1) forgetting that I also need to split on whitespaces. So my problem is that I don't know how I split on both the first commas occurence, so that the year is on oe column and the whole name is on another column. I got
['\n\n\n1958\n\n\nGeorge Lees\n']
When I tried to split with split(',', 1)

You can use strip to remove all spaces in the start & end and then use split by "\n" to get the required output. I have also used the filter method to remove any empty string or values.
Ex:
A = ['\n\n\n1958\n\n\nGeorge Lees\n']
print filter(None, A[0].strip().split("\n"))
Output:
['1958', 'George Lees']

Add a number to the beginning of a string in particular locations

I have this string:
abc,12345,abc,abc,abc,abc,12345,98765443,xyz,zyx,123
What can I use to add a 0 to the beginning of each number in this string? So how can I turn that string into something like:
abc,012345,abc,abc,abc,abc,012345,098765443,xyz,zyx,0123
I've tried playing around with Regex but I'm unsure how I can use that effectively to yield the result I want. I need it to match with a string of numbers rather than a positive integer, but with only numbers in the string, so not something like:
1234abc567 into 01234abc567 as it has letters in it. Each value is always separated by a comma.

Use re.sub,
re.sub(r'(^|,)(\d)', r'\g<1>0\2', s)
or
re.sub(r'(^|,)(?=\d)', r'\g<1>0', s)
or
re.sub(r'\b(\d)', r'0\1', s)

Try following
re.sub(r'(?<=\b)(\d+)(?=\b)', r'\g<1>0', str)

If the numbers are always seperated by commas in your string, you can use basic list methods to achieve the result you want.
Let's say your string is called x
y=x.split(',')
x=''
for i in y:
if i.isdigit():
i='0'+i
x=x+i+','
What this piece of code does is the following:
Splits your string into pieces depending on where you have commas and returns a list of the pieces.
Checks if the pieces are actually numbers, and if they are a 0 is added using string concatenation.
Finally your string is rebuilt by concatenating the pieces along with the commas.