How to replace spaces between words using regex?

Question

I am trying to convert a string of words and numbers into a list, every item is separated with a space, so using .replace(" ", ",").split(",") would be an easy solution, but unfortunately, sometimes there are multiple words in the object name, and I would like these words to be connected with a _

Example:

office supplies 674.56 570.980487 755.84 682.360029

Expected output:

office_supplies 674.56 570.980487 755.84 682.360029

I have found this: Replace spaces between letters only

And tried to implement it like this:

sample_line = "office supplies 674.56 570.980487 755.84 682.360029"
regex = re.compile(':%s/\v(\a)\s(\a)/\1_\2/g', re.I)
print(re.sub(p, r"\1\2", line))

But it does not seem to replace the spaces, I am not very sharp with regex, but according to the linked issue, it should work.

\D\s\D should look for whitespaces between non-digit characters regex101.com/r/t0kOKw/1 — M B
– M B, Commented Jul 4, 2022 at 7:11

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-04 07:13:02Z

4

You may probably use this re.sub + split solution:

import re
s = 'office supplies 674.56 570.980487 755.84 682.360029'
print ( re.sub(r'(?<=[a-zA-Z])\s+(?=[a-zA-Z])', '_', s).split() )

Output:

['office_supplies', '674.56', '570.980487', '755.84', '682.360029']

Here:

Regex (?<=[a-zA-Z])\s+(?=[a-zA-Z]) matches 1+ whitespace surrounded with letters only
split will split string on whitespaces

answered Jul 4, 2022 at 7:13

anubhava

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Comments

forvaidya · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-04 09:44:52Z

1

x=r'office supplies 674.56 570.980487 755.84 682.360029'
lead="_".join(x.split()[:2])
trail=" ".join(x.split()[2:])

expected_string = lead + " " + trail
print(expected_string)

answered Jul 4, 2022 at 9:44

forvaidya

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1 Comment

Martin Pedersen Over a year ago

Thanks, but the issue got solved already 👍🏼

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