How to remove white space, line breaks etc from a string in python

Question

Have a below output and wanted to remove the white space and line breaks.

\n', '    var [3:0] apple [1:0];\n', '    int mango;\n', '    float banana [5:0];\n', '    int lichi;\n', '

I tried both the below code but its not working. Any comments/corrections ?

print str(str(re.sub('[^A-Za-z0-9[:]]+[\r\n]+', ' ', str(match_group_t[i]))))
print re.sub(r"(?<=[a-z])\r?\n"," ", match_group_t[i])

Drop in your comments for any correction !

Expected Output is : Only var [3:0] apple [1:0], int mango, float banana [5:0], int lichi. So that I can store type and name separately in an array and use it later. Like

variable data in an array: [apple, var, lelem, [3:0], rleme, [1:0]]

You are not gonna want to use regex for removing whitespace and linebreaks in python. Just do string.replace(" ", "") and string.replace("\n", "") — Maximilian Ballard
– Maximilian Ballard, Commented Aug 18, 2018 at 23:05
I'm not totally clear on what you want your output to be (e.g., do you want to preserve the space in var apple?), but I don't see why a variant of print(re.sub("\s{2,}", "", s)) wouldn't suffice offhand. — ggorlen
– ggorlen, Commented Aug 18, 2018 at 23:09
@truecam: print match_group_t[i].replace("\n",""). Is not replace the required \n with "". — Desperado
– Desperado, Commented Aug 18, 2018 at 23:38
This is what I got. It worked for me >>> a = "\n asifjdiasd fjj jads \n" >>> a.replace("\n", "") ' asifjdiasd fjj jads ' — Maximilian Ballard
– Maximilian Ballard, Commented Aug 18, 2018 at 23:44

Paolo · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-18 23:58:42Z

3

You can use the expression in re.sub:

(?:[;\n']|\s{2,})

(?: Non capturing group
- [;\n'] Characters ; , \n and '.
- | Or
- \s{2,} Whitespace, two or more.
) Close non capturing group.

Python code:

import re
mystr = "\n', '    var [3:0] apple [1:0];\n', '    int mango;\n', '    float banana [5:0];\n', '    int lichi;\n', '  "

print(re.sub(r"(?:[;\n']|\s{2,})",r'',mystr)[2:])

Prints the desired output:

var [3:0] apple [1:0], int mango, float banana [5:0], int lichi,

edited Aug 18, 2018 at 23:58

answered Aug 18, 2018 at 23:37

Paolo

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7 Comments

Desperado Over a year ago

I tried your tried above, But this is the output I am getting. Output before applying your approach: \n', ' var [3:0] apple [1:0];\n', ' int mango;\n', ' float banana;\n', ' int lichi;\n', ' Output after applying your approach: , var [3:0] apple [1:0]\n, int mango\n, float banana\n, int lichi\n, Can you please provide some note on your approach so that I can try to edit and I am slightly new to this reg approach.

Paolo Over a year ago

How did you try it? Copy and paste it in and should print what I showed in my answer. I'll add notes for the regex.

Desperado Over a year ago

Standalone it works, when I tried using in the bigger program its printing the different output. Bigger problem is posted in below link for different query: stackoverflow.com/questions/51905869/…

Paolo Over a year ago

Bigger program do you mean a bigger text file?

Desperado Over a year ago

@UnbearabelLightness: Have tried your approach in the bigger code and updated the code.. But output is slightly different in there. stackoverflow.com/questions/51905869/…

|

James Lim · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-19 00:30:10Z

2

Consider using the built-in isspace instead of regular expressions.

newstring = ''.join(ch for ch in oldstring if not ch.isspace())

edited Aug 19, 2018 at 0:30

James Lim

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answered Aug 18, 2018 at 23:05

John Gordon

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