I want to replace dashes which appear between letters with a space using regex. For example to replace ab-cd
with ab cd
The following matches the character-character sequence, however also replaces the characters [i.e. ab-cd
results in a d
, rather than ab cd
as i desire]
new_term = re.sub(r"[A-z]\-[A-z]", " ", original_term)
How i adapt the above to only replace the -
part?
You need to capture the characters before and after the -
to a group and use them for replacement, i.e.:
import re
subject = "ab-cd"
subject = re.sub(r"([a-z])\-([a-z])", r"\1 \2", subject , 0, re.IGNORECASE)
print subject
#ab cd
DEMO
http://ideone.com/LAYQWT
REGEX EXPLANATION
([A-z])\-([A-z])
Match the regex below and capture its match into backreference number 1 «([A-z])»
Match a single character in the range between “A” and “z” «[A-z]»
Match the character “-” literally «\-»
Match the regex below and capture its match into backreference number 2 «([A-z])»
Match a single character in the range between “A” and “z” «[A-z]»
\1 \2
Insert the text that was last matched by capturing group number 1 «\1»
Insert the character “ ” literally « »
Insert the text that was last matched by capturing group number 2 «\2»
Use references to capturing groups:
>>> original_term = 'ab-cd'
>>> re.sub(r"([A-z])\-([A-z])", r"\1 \2", original_term)
'ab cd'
This assumes, of course, that you can't just do original_term.replace('-', ' ')
for whatever reason. Perhaps your text uses hyphens where it should use en dashes or something.
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