How to create Python Regex that replaces characters?

Question

I am having trouble in finding the way to create a proper regex that replaces in a string anything different from a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and |.

Until now, I have:

 re.sub(r'[\W_]+', '', s)

This works fine for alphanumerical characters, but I also need to make it work for pipe ("|"). Does anyone know how to make it?

For example, if I have:

name&|surna.me|ag,e

I need it like:

name|surname|age

Wiktor Stribiżew · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-09 22:02:09Z

5

anything different from a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and |.

You need a negated character class:

s = re.sub(r'[^a-zA-Z0-9|]+', '', s)

A [ starts the character class, ^ tells the regex engine that it should match anything other than what is defined inside the class, and the rest are your ranges/chars. ] closes the class and + makes it match 1 or more occurrences of the required chars.

See the regex demo and a Python demo:

import re
s = 'name&|surna.me|ag,e'
s = re.sub(r'[^a-zA-Z0-9|]+', '', s)
print(s)
# => name|surname|age

answered Mar 9, 2017 at 22:02

Wiktor Stribiżew

631k41 gold badges502 silver badges633 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

How to create Python Regex that replaces characters?

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related