how do I replace a string in a phrase in python?

Question

so this is the code i made in pyhton and for some reason it does not work so i hoped that someone here could help me find a solution * i am just a begginer *

    def replace(phrase):
    replaced = ""
    for word in phrase:
        if word == ("what"):
            replaced = replaced + "the"
        else:
            replaced = replaced + word
    return replaced

    print(replace(input("enter a phrase: ")))

Your for loop is `for word in phrase` but when you iterate over a string, you are actually iterating over each character. One way to iterate over words is `for word in phrase.split()`, which will split `phrase` by whitespace. — jkr, Oct 20 '20 at 01:59
Does this answer your question? [Replacing specific words in a string (Python)](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12538160/replacing-specific-words-in-a-string-python) — Tzane, Sep 06 '21 at 12:00

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 20 '20 at 01:59

1

Try the replace method instead:

def replace(phrase):
  replaced = phrase.replace("what","the")
  return replaced

answered Oct 20 '20 at 01:59

Wasif

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score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 20 '20 at 02:02

Here we use .split() to split your phrase by the space. As a result you get a list of each word ['hi', 'what', 'world']. If you don't split it, you will loop through each character if the string instead and no character will ever equal "what"

 def replace(phrase):
    phrase = phrase.split()
    replaced = ""
    for word in phrase:
        if word == ("what"):
            replaced = replaced + " the "
        else:
            replaced = replaced + word
    return replaced

print(replace(input("enter a phrase: ")))

ZahraRezaei · Answer 3 · 2020-10-30T20:42:40.433

You can try this code, I hope it helps you

def replace(phrase):
    phrase = phrase.split()
    replaced = ""
    for word in phrase:
        if word == ("what"):
            replaced = replaced + " the"
        else:
            replaced = replaced +" "+ word
    return replaced[1:]

print(replace(input("enter a phrase: ")))

The output is:

enter a phrase: where what this what when ,
where the this the when ,

how do I replace a string in a phrase in python?

3 Answers3