How to get only words from the string using python

Question

I have a file which has special characters, so I used file operations to read.

f=open('st.txt','r')
string=f.read()

The sample string is

"Free Quote!\n          \n          Protecting your family is the best investment you\'ll eve=\nr \n"

now I want to remove all the special characters and get only the words from the string. so that my string will be:

"Free Quote Protecting your family is the best investment you'll ever"

jdotjdot · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-16 06:26:56Z

4

Probably the simplest way to do this is a simple loop testing against string.ascii_letters plus a specific subset of extra characters (e.g., '-):

>>> import string
>>> text = "Free Quote!\n \n Protecting your family is the best investment you\'ll eve=\nr \n"
>>> ''.join([x for x in text if x in string.ascii_letters + '\'- '])
"Free Quote  Protecting your family is the best investment you'll ever "

As you edit longer and more complex texts, excluding specific punctuation marks becomes less sustainable, and you'd need to use more complex regex (for example, when is a ' an apostrophe or a quote?), but for the scope of your problem above, this should suffice.

answered Apr 16, 2013 at 6:26

jdotjdot

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1 Comment

jdotjdot Over a year ago

Glad to hear that. If this answer worked for you, please accept it so that people know that the question is closed.

Sir l33tname · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-16 06:17:17Z

1

I found 3 solutions but there all close but not exactly what you want.

import re
in_string = "Free Quote!\n \n Protecting your family is the best investment you\'ll eve=\nr \n"

#variant 1
#Free Quote Protecting your family is the best investment youll eve r 
out_string = ""
array = "Free Quote!\n \n Protecting your family is the best investment you\'ll eve=\nr \n".split( )
for word in array:
    out_string += re.sub(r'[\W]', '', word) + " "
print(out_string)

#variant 2
#Free Quote Protecting your family is the best investment you ll eve r
print(" ".join(re.findall("[a-zA-Z]+", in_string)))

#variant 3
#FreeQuoteProtectingyourfamilyisthebestinvestmentyoullever
print(re.sub(r'[\W]', '', in_string))

edited Apr 16, 2013 at 6:17

answered Apr 15, 2013 at 7:33

Sir l33tname

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2 Comments

sunny Over a year ago

If you see the output, the special characters like ! and = are not removed and \n which gave the next line. I want the output to be as below "Free Quote Protecting your family is the best investment youll ever"

Sir l33tname Over a year ago

I update the question but unfortunately the solutions are just close

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