Regex to remove unnecessary period in Chinese translation

Question

I use a translator tool to translate English into Simplified Chinese.

Now there is an issue with the period.

In English at the finish point of a sentence, we use full stop "." In Simplified Chinese, it is "。"which looks like a small circle.

The translation tool mistakenly add this "small circle" / full stop to every major subtitles.

Is there a way to use Regex or other methods to scan the translated content, and replace any "small circle" / Chinese full stop symbol when the line has only 20 characters or less?

Some test data like below

<h1>这是一个测试。<h1>
这是一个测试，这是一个测试而已，希望去掉不需要的。

测试。
这是一个测试，这是一个测试而已，希望去掉不需要的第二行。

It shall turn into:

<h1>这是一个测试<h1>
这是一个测试，这是一个测试而已，希望去掉不需要的。

测试
这是一个测试，这是一个测试而已，希望去掉不需要的第二行。

Difference: Line 1 it only has 10 characters, and shall have Chinese full stop removed. Line 4 is a sub heading, it only has 4 characters, and shall have full stop removed too.

By the way, I was told 1 Chinese word is two English characters.

Is this possible?

It seems like you are deciding whether to remove a fullstop based on whether that line is a "heading". How do you tell whether a line is a "heading"? — Sweeper, Apr 09 '21 at 01:43
There are two ways. First: if a line has less than 20 characters, then it should not have a small full stop. This will catch most of these errors. Second: maybe this one is more accurate: if there is no comma in this line, it should not have a full stop. — stackmike, Apr 09 '21 at 01:46
I am using an automation tool. It can run c# or javascript, and regex. I am not sure what engine version it is. — stackmike, Apr 09 '21 at 01:53
If I use the Chinese full stop symbol in the built in tester, it would remove all full stop. I wish to have a condition. In this image below, remove the blue arrow highlighted ones. When the line has a comma, the full stop is ok. https://i.imgur.com/iX0KSlN.jpg — stackmike, Apr 09 '21 at 01:59

Hao Wu · Accepted Answer · 2021-04-09T02:09:36.110

I'm using the approach 2

Second: maybe this one is more accurate: if there is no comma in this line, it should not have a full stop.

to determine whether a full stop 。 should be removed.

Regex

/^(?=.*。)(?!.*，)([^。]*)。/mg

^ start of a line
(?=.*。) match a line that contains 。
(?!.*，) match a line that doesn't contain ，
([^。]*)。 anything that not a full stop before a full stop, put it in group 1

Substitution

$1

Check the test cases here

But do mind this only removes the first full stop.

If you want to remove all the full stops, you can try (?:\G|^)(?=.*。)(?!.*，)(.*?)。 but this only works for regex engines supports \G such as pcre.

Also, if you want to combine the two approaches(a line has no period ， and the length is less than 20 characters), you can try ^(?=.{1,20}$)(?=.*。)(?!.*，)([^。]*)。

Regex to remove unnecessary period in Chinese translation

1 Answers1

Regex

Substitution