Replace multiple tabs by single tab in python

Question

I am a newbie in python programming. I am reading a tab separated file and would like to do an operation which can replace multiple tabs (separating two columns) by single tab.

with open('file.tsv','r') as fin:
    cr = csv.reader(fin, delimiter='\t')
    filecontents = [line for line in cr]

I tried doing it by join function

with open('file.tsv','r') as fin:
    cr = csv.reader(fin, delimiter='\t')
    filecontents = ''.join([line.replace('\t\t', '\t') for line in cr])

I am getting below error.

AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'replace'

How can I do it?

If your file is a well formatted tsv, two tabs mean that there's a column with blank value, if you remove one tab could make your tsv file lose consistency — Gocht
– Gocht, Commented Jan 17, 2020 at 15:03

Yatish Kadam · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-17 15:11:53Z

2

You can use

re.sub

Giving it "[\t]+" is telling it find one or more tabs and replace it with 1.
Note the use of "\\" is to tell python its a special character.

import re
s = "a\\t\\t\\t\\t\\ta\\t\\t"
print (re.sub(r"[\\t]+", "\t", s))

output >>>
a   a

answered Jan 17, 2020 at 15:11

Yatish Kadam

4722 silver badges11 bronze badges

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

Comments

JBirdVegas · Accepted Answer · 2020-01-17 14:59:07Z

0

One might use the str.replace method to ensure each line only contains a single tab in a row

filecontents = [line.replace('\t\t', '\t') for line in cr]

answered Jan 17, 2020 at 14:59

JBirdVegas

11.5k2 gold badges47 silver badges53 bronze badges

2 Comments

Yatish Kadam Over a year ago

the above condition only replaces 2 tabs.. Maybe use it to match multiple tabs?

rshar Over a year ago

line.replace('\t\t', '\t') is giving error: AttributeError: 'list' object has no attribute 'replace'

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Replace multiple tabs by single tab in python

2 Answers 2

Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

2 Answers 2

Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related