how to iterate through replace() function python

Question

I am trying to iterate through my replace() function, to remove [1:n] in my .txt file (see image below), but it does not seem to work.

I have tried multiple things:

with open('glad.txt', 'rt') as f:
  content = f.read()
  for line in content:
    for x in range(118):
      z = line.replace(f"[{x}]", "")
  f.close()    
print(z)

also:

with open('glad.txt', 'rt') as f:
  content = f.read()
  test = open("out.txt", "wt")
  for line in content:
    for x in range(120):
      z = test.write(line.replace(f"[{x}]", ""))
  f.close()
print(z)

But both without success.

Does anyone know how to solve this problem?

Yes, of course, so for instance the data contains the following sentence: "[113][114][115] Een paar dagen voor de inhuldiging protesteerde de lokale Turkse gemeenschap tegen de oprichting van het monument.[116]" and I expect the output to be: "Een paar dagen voor de inhuldiging protesteerde de lokale Turkse gemeenschap tegen de oprichting van het monument." @ohthatgeoff if that answers your question. — Liza Darwesh
– Liza Darwesh, Commented Dec 31, 2020 at 21:25
line.replace does not modify line, it modifies z. Also, f.close is not needed with the with context manager. — Martin
– Martin, Commented Dec 31, 2020 at 21:27

ohthatgeoff · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-31 21:37:36Z

2

This solution uses the re.sub() function to replace those characters.

import re

text = """
OK this is some text. [123][456][789]
just some more text.[007]
"""

output = re.sub(r'\[\d+\]', '', text)

print(output)

Output

OK this is some text.
just some more text.

Update:

Adding a file reading example. Make sure to pass the file as the first argument to the script.

import re
import sys

with open(sys.argv[1]) as fin:
    text = fin.read()

output = re.sub(r'\[\d+\]', '', text)

print(output)

edited Dec 31, 2020 at 21:37

answered Dec 31, 2020 at 21:26

ohthatgeoff

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2 Comments

Liza Darwesh Over a year ago

I tried doing it like this: import re with open('glad.txt', 'rt') as f: content = f.read() output = re.sub(r'[\d+]', '', content) print(output) but this game me a blank output

ohthatgeoff Over a year ago

Updated the answer to have a file reading example, hopefully that helps.

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