How to replace character between two digits using re in Python?

Question

I want to work on a string dataset and replace '-' with a '.' I have this dataset:

AUDI XXX-R 2-0TS
AUDI XXX-R 2-0T
AUDI X-R 2-0

I want the '-' to be replaced by '.' so all occurrences with number-number** should be replaced by number.number**

I have tried adding the following regex pattern but it replaces the Alphabet's '-' as-well

[^a-z-A-Z]?(\d)-(\d)?[a-zA-Z]?[a-z-A-Z]

I need the pattern where no matter what the string is the '-' between two digits should be replaced with '.'

Answer 1

We can use lookaround constructs [regular-expressions.info] for this:

from re import compile as recompile

rgx = recompile(r'(?<=\d)[-](?=\d)')

for this rgx, we can then substitute like:

>>> rgx.sub('.', 'AUDI XXX-R 2-0TS AUDI XXX-R 2-0T AUDI X-R 2-0')
'AUDI XXX-R 2.0TS AUDI XXX-R 2.0T AUDI X-R 2.0'

If the digit on the right is optional, we can just omit it, like:

rgx = recompile(r'(?<=\d)[-]')

This will thus replace 3-A with 3.A as well.