Exclude matching the period character in a [\W\d]+ regex

Question

I'd like to remove all from a string except alphabetic characters and periods. I made the below function in python. How would I extend the regex so periods are NOT stripped from the string? This needs to work for unicode strings.

def normalize(self, text):
    text = re.sub(ur"(?u)[\W\d]+", ' ', text)
    print text
    return text

try `text = re.sub(ur"(?:(?!\.)[\W\d])+", ' ', text)` – Avinash Raj Sep 11 '15 at 11:59 — Avinash Raj, Sep 11 '15 at 11:59

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:14

5

change the semantics from 'strip everything in this group' to 'strip everything that's not in this group' and use:

text = re.sub(ur"(?u)[^a-zA-Z\.]+", ' ', text)

update

i don't think the above mentioned solution will work with all unicode alphabet.
the answers here offer alternative modules to the builtin re that support unicode letter groups.

another option is combining the two approaches:

>>> text = '1234abcd.à!@#$'
>>> re.sub(ur'(?u)([^\w\.]|\d)+',' ',text)
' abcd.\xc3 '

edited May 23 '17 at 12:14

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answered Sep 11 '15 at 11:57

yurib

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edited. again it won't do the thing that op expects. See the plus at the last. – Avinash Raj Sep 11 '15 at 12:01
change your regex to `[^a-zA-Z\.]+` – Avinash Raj Sep 11 '15 at 12:03
([^\w\.]|\d)+ does not work. it does not strip the numbers. – Jabb Sep 11 '15 at 12:36
@Jabb it does for me, see added example input/output – yurib Sep 11 '15 at 12:41

Exclude matching the period character in a [\W\d]+ regex

1 Answers1