Pythonic way of parsing this string?

Question

I'm parsing this line-

0386          ; Greek # L&       GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS

Basically, I need -

point = 0386
script = Greek

And I'm doing it like this,

point = line.split(";")[0].replace(" ","")
script = line.split("#")[0].split(";")[1].replace(" ","")

I'm not convinced that what I'm doing is the most pythonic way of doing it, is there a more elegant way of doing this? Maybe a regex one-liner?

EyalAr · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-06 09:25:56Z

3

If you want a regex one liner:

point, script = re.search("^(\d+)\s*;\s*(\S+)\s*.*$",s).groups()

where s is your string, and of course you need to import re

answered Jan 6, 2014 at 9:25

EyalAr

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2 Comments

ComputerFellow Over a year ago

("^(.*)\s+;\s+(.*)\s+#.*$", s).groups() worked for me. The above didn't.

EyalAr Over a year ago

@ComputerFellow, Your regex matches the number with the white space after it. But if it works for you I'm glad! Anyway, the point here is to show how you do it with a regex in one line.

Burhan Khalid · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-06 09:28:31Z

3

>>> code, desc = line[:line.rfind('#')].split(';')
>>> code.strip()
'0386'
>>> desc.strip()
'Greek'

answered Jan 6, 2014 at 9:28

Burhan Khalid

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Comments

falsetru · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-06 09:21:24Z

2

Using map with unbound method str.strip:

>>> line = '0386      ; Greek # L&   GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS'
>>> point, script = map(str.strip, line.split('#')[0].split(';'))
>>> point
'0386'
>>> script
'Greek'

Using list comprehension:

>>> point, script = [word.strip() for word in line.split('#')[0].split(';')]
>>> point
'0386'
>>> script
'Greek'

answered Jan 6, 2014 at 9:21

falsetru

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9 Comments

Nafiul Islam Over a year ago

This looks very concise, although I prefer not using map.

falsetru Over a year ago

@GamesBrainiac, I added list comprehension version.

ComputerFellow Over a year ago

@GamesBrainiac Why not a map? How would it affect the performance?

Nafiul Islam Over a year ago

@ComputerFellow LCs are generally faster than maps.

Neil G Over a year ago

This kind of speed difference should never matter. list comprehensions are usually preferred to map because they are easier to read.

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Nafiul Islam · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-06 09:20:38Z

0

This is how I would've done it:

>>> s = "0386          ; Greek # L&       GREEK CAPITAL LETTER ALPHA WITH TONOS"
>>> point = s.split(';')[0].strip()
>>> point
'0386'
>>> script = s.split(';')[1].split('#')[0].strip()
>>> script
'Greek'

Note that you can re-use s.split(';'). So perhaps saving it to a var would be a good idea:

>>> var = s.split(';')
>>> point = var[0].strip()  # Strip gets rid of all the whitespace
>>> point
'0386'
>>> script = var[1].split('#')[0].strip()
>>> script
'Greek'

answered Jan 6, 2014 at 9:20

Nafiul Islam

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