How to correct this problem occurring in replace()? Python

Question

I have a sentence as follows:

s="This is my cat who is my ally and this is my dog who has started to finally act like one."

I want to replace certain words in the sentence with other words. Example:

cat with bat, ally with protector.

Now the problem occurs with similar words. For example ally and finally

s="This is my cat who is my ally and this is my dog who has started to finally act like one."
for r in (("cat", "bat"),("ally", "protector")):
    s = s.replace(*r)
print(s)

This should give me:

This is my bat who is my protector and this is my dog who has started to finally act like one.

But it gives me the following output affecting finally because of ally:

This is my bat who is my protector and this is my dog who has started to finprotector act like one.

It affects finally and converts it to finprotector. I don't want this. How can I solve this issue? Any help will be appreciated.

Use regex. re.sub('\bally\b', 'protector', s)

Sohaib Farooqi
– Sohaib Farooqi

2021-01-15 13:47:17 +00:00
Commented Jan 15, 2021 at 13:47 — Sohaib Farooqi
– Sohaib Farooqi, Commented Jan 15, 2021 at 13:47

Timur Shtatland · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-15 14:38:38Z

2

Use regular expressions with a dictionary, re.sub , and lambda like so:

import re

s = "This is my cat who is my ally and this is my dog who has started to finally act like one."
dct = {
    'cat': 'bat',
    'ally': 'protector'
}

regex = re.compile(r'\b(' + '|'.join(map(re.escape, dct.keys())) + r')\b')
print(regex.sub(lambda match: dct[match.group(0)], s))
# This is my bat who is my protector and this is my dog who has started to finally act like one.

Note that \b denotes word break, which allows ally and , ally , but not finally, to be matched.

edited Jan 15, 2021 at 14:38

answered Jan 15, 2021 at 14:22

Timur Shtatland

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Comments

Mitchell Olislagers · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-15 13:45:57Z

2

You can include spaces in your replace to only select individual words.

s="This is my cat who is my ally and this is my dog who has started to finally act like one."
for r in ((" cat ", " bat "),(" ally ", " protector ")):
    s = s.replace(*r)
print(s)

This is my bat who is my protector and this is my dog who has started to finally act like one.

answered Jan 15, 2021 at 13:45

Mitchell Olislagers

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2 Comments

Reema Q Khan Over a year ago

Wow! Thanks a lot buddy. :D You saved the day.

Hampus Larsson Over a year ago

This will however not work if the string is my cat, who is my ally which would make more grammatical sense. You should use Regular-Expression here ideally.

Roman J. · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-15 13:53:40Z

1

Maybe you want to try the regular expressions and the re module (particulary the re.sub() method)?

import re

line = re.sub(r'\bally\b', 'protector', s)

edited Jan 15, 2021 at 13:53

answered Jan 15, 2021 at 13:51

Roman J.

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2 Comments

Reema Q Khan Over a year ago

How to give more than one condition like cat->bat, ally->protector ....

Roman J. Over a year ago

I would say several calls of the re.sub. Take into account that the method has an optional argument count: by default, it changes only the leftmost appearance of the replacing pattern.

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