how to avoid space on newline while joining a list

Question

newContents = ['The', 'crazy', 'panda', 'walked', 'to', 'the', 'Maulik', 'and', 'then', 'picked.', 'A', 'nearby', 'Ankur', 'was\n', 'unaffected', 'by', 'these', 'events.\n']
print(' '.join(newContents))

output:

The crazy panda walked to the Maulik and then picked. A nearby Ankur was
 unaffected by these events.

there is space before the (first) word unaffected on second line I don't want a space there.

space is before the word unaffected in output (on second line). @RomanPerekhrest — gondu riya, Feb 27 '17 at 13:01
@gonduriya yes, indeed, sorry - I misunderstood the question... — ewcz, Feb 27 '17 at 13:07

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 27 '17 at 13:05

There's a simple enough solution: replace \n[space] with \n. That way all spaces are left alone and only string replaced is \n[space] with newline without space

>>> newContents = ['The', 'crazy', 'panda', 'walked', 'to', 'the', 'Maulik', 'and', 'then', 'picked.', 'A', 'nearby', 'Ankur', 'was\n', 'unaffected', 'by', 'these', 'events.\n']
>>> print(' '.join(newContents).replace('\n ', '\n'))
The crazy panda walked to the Maulik and then picked. A nearby Ankur was
unaffected by these events.

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 27 '17 at 13:04

3

You could remove it after join:

your_string = ' '.join(newContents).replace('\n ', '\n')
print(your_string)

answered Feb 27 '17 at 13:04

Oleksandr Dashkov

2,249
1
15
29

Eric Duminil · Answer 3 · 2017-02-27T13:04:20.363

1

You could use replace to check for a space after a newline:

print(' '.join(newContents).replace('\n ', '\n'))

It outputs :

The crazy panda walked to the Maulik and then picked. A nearby Ankur was
unaffected by these events.

edited Feb 27 '17 at 13:04

answered Feb 27 '17 at 13:00

Eric Duminil

52,989
9
71
124

This will also remove the new line. – Maroun Feb 27 '17 at 13:00
@MarounMaroun: lol we wrote (except for the ellipse) exactly the same text at exactly the same moment... – Willem Van Onsem Feb 27 '17 at 13:01
@WillemVanOnsem possible duplicate. – Maroun Feb 27 '17 at 13:01

RomanPerekhrest · Answer 4 · 2017-02-27T13:09:36.217

Use re.sub function to remove spaces right after newline:

import re

newContents = ['The', 'crazy', 'panda', 'walked', 'to', 'the', 'Maulik', 'and', 'then', 'picked.', 'A', 'nearby', 'Ankur', 'was\n', 'unaffected', 'by', 'these', 'events.\n']
print(re.sub(r'\n\s+', '\n',' '.join(newContents)))

The output:

The crazy panda walked to the Maulik and then picked. A nearby Ankur was
unaffected by these events.

The above will also remove multiple spaces(if occur) after newline

James Scholes · Answer 5 · 2017-02-27T13:06:17.960

-1

Strip the whitespace from each one:

>>> newContents = ['The', 'crazy', 'panda', 'walked', 'to', 'the', 'Maulik', 'and', 'then', 'picked.', 'A', 'nearby', 'Ankur', 'was\n', 'unaffected', 'by', 'these', 'events.\n']
>>> print(' '.join(item.strip() for item in newContents))
The crazy panda walked to the Maulik and then picked. A nearby Ankur was unaffected by these events.

edited Feb 27 '17 at 13:06

answered Feb 27 '17 at 13:04

James Scholes

7,686
3
19
20

you do not need to create the list. Just provide an iterator like `' '.join(x.strip() for x in newContents)` – Ma0 Feb 27 '17 at 13:04
2

@Ev.Kounis - `str.join` sometimes performs better when passed a list. That said, this answer is wrong, because it removes the linefeeds. The question only wants to get rid of the extraneous spaces. – TigerhawkT3 Feb 27 '17 at 13:06
As stated in comments, OP wants to keep newline. Just don't want the space before newline – Lafexlos Feb 27 '17 at 13:06
@TigerhawkT3 That is very interesting.. Do you by any chance have a reference for that? – Ma0 Feb 27 '17 at 13:07
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/34822676/joining-strings-generator-or-list-comprehension – Jean-François Fabre Feb 27 '17 at 13:10

how to avoid space on newline while joining a list

5 Answers5