replacing all variations of first/last name

Question

Background

I have the following code that is a variation of the #Replace a name in a string in Python

s = "The myth of Johnny Appleseed states that he ate many apple seeds"
s.replace('Johnny Appleseed','***')

Output

'The myth of *** states that he ate many apple seeds'

Problem

But what if the first and last name contains many variations (non-exhaustive list)

#misspellings 
Johnny Applseed
Johny Appleseed
Johnny Applesee

#Letter case 
johnny appleseed
JOHNNY APPLESEED
JoHny ApPleseED

Question

How do I get the same output as above

'The myth of *** states that he ate many apple seeds'

If any or all of these variations are present in the first and last name?

In that case you could account for the characters by making some optional using `?` or use quantifier like `*` for 0+ times or `+` for 1+ times and make the match case insensitive by perhaps using a flag `/i` or set it in the code if possible. For example `\bJohn+y Apple?seed?\b` see https://regex101.com/r/FaJqv6/1 — The fourth bird, Jun 24 '19 at 20:21

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 24 '19 at 20:17

Good question!

If we would know that'd be Johnny, then we would start with an expression similar to:

\b[johny]+\b\s+\b[aplsed]+\b

If not, we would design a close expression, then we would trade off for the accuracy that we might want.

1 Answers1