Replace multiple characters in a string with one occurrence of char in Python

Question

I am trying to repalce multiple characters (\t, \n or \r) in a given string to only one occurrence of character which is pipeline | :

What is required :

Current string : '\t \r\nFoo\t Fooo\t Dog\t Foo\t \r\n\r\n'

Desired Output : ' |Foo| Fooo| Dog| Foo| '

Here is what i have tried so far :

import re
string = '\t \r\nFoo\t Fooo\t Dog\t Foo\t \r\n\r\n'
re.sub('\r|\n|\t', '|', string)

Here is the output i got '| ||Foo| Fooo| Dog| Foo| ||||' where pipeline is duplicate here.

Why not | |Foo| Fooo| Dog| Foo| | why the first and last disappear ? — azro
– azro, Commented Aug 3, 2021 at 17:43

azro · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-03 17:43:52Z

3

You may use + symbol in the regex to replace sequence of that chars

import re

string = '\t \r\nFoo\t Fooo\t Dog\t Foo\t \r\n\r\n'
res = re.sub('[\r\n\t]+', '|', string)
print(res)  # | |Foo| Fooo| Dog| Foo| |

Regarding your requirements, the first and last pipe have no reason to not appear, so for now I keep that

answered Aug 3, 2021 at 17:43

azro

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The fourth bird · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-03 19:32:35Z

1

To get the desired output, you can replace the tabs and the newlines at the start and ^ at the end $ of the string with an empty string.

Then replace all other tabs and newlines with a pipe char |

Regex demo | Python demo

import re

string = '\t \r\nFoo\t Fooo\t Dog\t Foo\t \r\n\r\n'
result = re.sub(
    '^[\r\n\t]+|[\r\n\t]+$|([\r\n\t]+)',
    lambda x: '|' if x.group(1) else '',
    string
)
print(result)

Output

|Foo| Fooo| Dog| Foo|

edited Aug 3, 2021 at 19:32

answered Aug 3, 2021 at 18:03

The fourth bird

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2 Comments

Ibrahim Ayoup Over a year ago

That worked as well !, saved me couple of lines of code.

The fourth bird Over a year ago

@IbraheemAyoup You want to keep the existing spaces right? Else you could do \s+ See regex101.com/r/hTaodo/1

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