Pythonic way to remove specific characters from a string

Question

I want to remove specific characters from a string. I am using the following code:

words = words.replace("[", "").replace("_", "").replace("[","").replace("]", "")\
.replace("(", "").replace("/", "")

This code works fine but it is a bit messy. I am wondering if there is a better way to do this?

Use `re.sub()` with a regexp that matches all the characters you want to remove. — Barmar, Jul 31 '21 at 16:25
if you have a different criterion for substitution then you can check `str.translate` — Epsi95, Jul 31 '21 at 16:26
also words = words.translate({ord(c):None for c in "[(_/)]"}) — Kenny Ostrom, Jul 31 '21 at 16:37

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 31 '21 at 16:26

1

Use re.sub with a character class containing the individual characters you want to remove:

words = re.sub(r'[\[\]_(/]', '', words)

answered Jul 31 '21 at 16:26

Tim Biegeleisen

1 Answers1