how do I remove the word a in this string?
We are at a boat sale near a dock.
result
We are at boat sale near dock.
I've tried:
removed = original.replace(" a", "") ,
removed = original.replace(" a ", "")
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What is your problem with the second trial?Anand S Kumar– Anand S Kumar2015-10-13 04:34:32 +00:00Commented Oct 13, 2015 at 4:34
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4 Answers
Looks like you just needed to replace with a space.
'We are at a boat sale near a dock.'.replace(" a ", " ")
# Result: We are at boat sale near dock. #
I'm not sure what other strings you are trying to do this with but if you can get away with it try to use string ops like this instead of regex for better performance.
5 Comments
jensgram
I didn't get to post an answer, so instead I'll just provide a link to a demo :)
jason
@Green Cell, this doesn't work for
a We are at a boat sale near a dock.
Green Cell
replace("a ", "") would work. (and yes I know this would fail if a was at the end) He asked for a specific string, so I gave him an answer for that specific string.jason
@GreenCell, what about a general solution?
Green Cell
Here's a general solution:
'a We are at a boat sale near a dock. a'.replace(' a ', ' ').lstrip('a ').rstrip(' a') Awaiting your answer too :)You can try by this way using regexp
import re
s= "We are at a boat sale near a dock."
op = re.sub(r'\ba\b\s+',"",s)
op
In python console
>>> import re
>>> s = 'We are at a boat sale near a dock.'
>>> op = re.sub(r'\ba\b\s+',"",s)
>>> op
'We are at boat sale near dock.'
2 Comments
Green Cell
That isn't the output OP asked for (extra spaces)
Green Cell
Now it's getting double spaces. Are you checking your answer?
Two steps.
word_a = re.compile(r'\ba\b')
spaces = re.compile(r'\s+')
spaces.sub(' ', word_a.sub('', 'We are at a boat sale near a dock'))
\b matches beginning or end of a word, but that alone will give us continuous spaces, so we replace multiple spaces \s+ with one space.
Comments
you can try:
1. Using replace
>>> line = """ We are at a boat sale near a dock. """
>>> line.replace(" a "," ")
' We are at boat sale near dock. '
Using regular expression and replace double space by single space:
(re.sub(r'\ba\b','',line)).replace(" "," ")
