Python how to remove escape characters from a string

Question

I have a string like below, and I want to remove all \x06 characters from the string in Python.

Ex:

s = 'test\x06\x06\x06\x06'
s1 = 'test2\x04\x04\x04\x04'
print(literal_eval("'%s'" % s))

output: test♠♠♠♠

I just need String test and remove all \xXX.

`"test\x06\x06\x06\x06, test2\x04\x04\x04\x04".replace('\x06','')` — Alex, Aug 09 '18 at 05:57
Also, string or bytes? Py 2 or py 3? What have you tried? What research have you done? — Mad Physicist, Aug 09 '18 at 05:58
I second @Mad Physicist in posting what you have tried so far. Also: do you have other escape chars or only these two? Please clarify your question. — toti08, Aug 09 '18 at 05:59
Possible duplicate of [How to remove all the escape sequences from a list of strings?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8115261/how-to-remove-all-the-escape-sequences-from-a-list-of-strings) — Sociopath, Aug 09 '18 at 06:00
@davedwards I have tried this and it returns test♠♠♠♠. I just need string 'test' — ashkus, Aug 09 '18 at 06:04
@ashkus you're right, how about this: `import re; re.sub('[^A-Za-z0-9]+', '', s)` — chickity china chinese chicken, Aug 09 '18 at 06:18

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 09 '18 at 06:21

6

Maybe the regex module is the way to go

>>> s = 'test\x06\x06\x06\x06'
>>> s1 = 'test2\x04\x04\x04\x04'
>>> import re
>>> re.sub('[^A-Za-z0-9]+', '', s)
'test'
>>> re.sub('[^A-Za-z0-9]+', '', s1)
'test2'

answered Aug 09 '18 at 06:21

chickity china chinese chicken

7,709
2
20
49

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 09 '18 at 06:14

If you want to remove all \xXX characters (non-printable ascii characters) the best way is probably like so

import string

def remove_non_printable(s):
    return ''.join(c for c in s if c not in string.printable)

Note this won't work with any non-ascii printable characters (like é, which will be removed).

Neal Titus Thomas · Answer 3 · 2019-06-28T05:39:17.760

0

This should do it

import re #Import regular expressions
s = 'test\x06\x06\x06\x06' #Input s
s1 = 'test2\x04\x04\x04\x04' #Input s1
print(re.sub('\x06','',s)) #remove all \x06 from s
print(re.sub('\x04','',s1)) #remove all \x04 from s1

edited Jun 28 '19 at 05:39

answered Aug 09 '18 at 06:20

Neal Titus Thomas

483
1
6
16

1

regular expressions are overkill for this method. Just use `str.replace` – FHTMitchell Aug 09 '18 at 08:14
i believe that in the second print statement is should be 's1', not s – Sergey Makhonin Jun 27 '19 at 10:19

Python how to remove escape characters from a string

3 Answers3