Replace all newline characters using python

Question

I am trying to read a pdf using python and the content has many newline (crlf) characters. I tried removing them using below code:

from tika import parser

filename = 'myfile.pdf'
raw = parser.from_file(filename)
content = raw['content']
content = content.replace("\r\n", "")
print(content)

But the output remains unchanged. I tried using double backslashes also which didn't fix the issue. can someone please advise?

Answer 1

content = content.replace("\\r\\n", "")

You need to double escape them.

Answer 2

I don't have access to your pdf file, so I processed one on my system. I also don't know if you need to remove all new lines or just double new lines. The code below remove double new lines, which makes the output more readable.

Please let me know if this works for your current needs.

from tika import parser

filename = 'myfile.pdf'

# Parse the PDF
parsedPDF = parser.from_file(filename)

# Extract the text content from the parsed PDF
pdf = parsedPDF["content"]

# Convert double newlines into single newlines
pdf = pdf.replace('\n\n', '\n')

#####################################
# Do something with the PDF
#####################################
print (pdf)

Answer 3

If you are having issues with different forms of line break, try the str.splitlines() function and then re-join the result using the string you're after. Like this:

content = "".join(l for l in content.splitlines() if l)

Then, you just have to change the value within the quotes to what you need to join on. This will allow you to detect all of the line boundaries found here. Be aware though that str.splitlines() returns a list not an iterator. So, for large strings, this will blow out your memory usage. In those cases, you are better off using the file stream or io.StringIO and read line by line.

Answer 4

print(open('myfile.txt').read().replace('\n', ''))

Answer 5

When you write something like t.replace("\r\n", "") python will look for a carriage-return followed by a new-line.

Python will not replace carriage returns by themselves or replace new-line characters by themselves.

Consider the following:

t = "abc abracadabra abc"
t.replace("abc", "x")

• Will t.replace("abc", "x") replace every occurrence of the letter a with the letter x? No

• Will t.replace("abc", "x") replace every occurrence of the letter b with the letter x? No

• Will t.replace("abc", "x") replace every occurrence of the letter c with the letter x? No

What will t.replace("abc", "x") do?

t.replace("abc", "x") will replace the entire string "abc" with the letter "x"

Consider the following:

test_input = "\r\nAPPLE\rORANGE\nKIWI\n\rPOMEGRANATE\r\nCHERRY\r\nSTRAWBERRY"

t = test_input
for _ in range(0, 3):
    t = t.replace("\r\n", "")
    print(repr(t))

result2 = "".join(test_input.split("\r\n"))
print(repr(result2))

The output sent to the console is as follows:

'APPLE\rORANGE\nKIWI\n\rPOMEGRANATECHERRYSTRAWBERRY'
'APPLE\rORANGE\nKIWI\n\rPOMEGRANATECHERRYSTRAWBERRY'
'APPLE\rORANGE\nKIWI\n\rPOMEGRANATECHERRYSTRAWBERRY'
'APPLE\rORANGE\nKIWI\n\rPOMEGRANATECHERRYSTRAWBERRY'

Note that:

• str.replace() replaces every occurrence of the target string, not just the left-most occurrence.
• str.replace() replaces the target string, but not every character of the target string.

If you want to delete all new-line and carriage returns, something like the following will get the job done:

in_string = "\r\n-APPLE-\r-ORANGE-\n-KIWI-\n\r-POMEGRANATE-\r\n-CHERRY-\r\n-STRAWBERRY-"

out_string = "".join(filter(lambda ch: ch not in "\n\r", in_string))

print(repr(out_string))
# prints -APPLE--ORANGE--KIWI--POMEGRANATE--CHERRY--STRAWBERRY-

Answer 6

You can also just use

text = '''
As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she
was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that she had somehow
fallen into the sea, “and in that case I can go back by railway,”
she said to herself.”'''

text = ' '.join(text.splitlines())

print(text)
# As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water. Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, “and in that case I can go back by railway,” she said to herself.”

Answer 7

#write a file 
enter code here
write_File=open("sample.txt","w")
write_File.write("line1\nline2\nline3\nline4\nline5\nline6\n")
write_File.close()

#open a file without new line of the characters
open_file=open("sample.txt","r")
open_new_File=open_file.read()
replace_string=open_new_File.replace("\n",." ")
print(replace_string,end=" ")
open_file.close()

OUTPUT

line1 line2 line3 line4 line5 line6

Answer 8

regex will work in this case

r'(\r\n)+ pattern matches one or more occurrences of \r\n and then it replaced with single \r\n

import re

content = '\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\ntest'
content = re.sub(r'(\r\n)+', r'\r\n', content)  # '\r\ntest'