Python how to replace \xa0 with space

Question

I have bytes in which \xao replaces a space. I tried many things to replace it by a space:

tmpstr = tmpstr.decode()

and then

tmpstr = unicodedata.normalize('NFD', tmpstr)

or

tmpstr = unicodedata.normalize('NFC', tmpstr)

or

tmpstr = unicodedata.normalize('NFKD', tmpstr)

I also tried:

tmpstr = tmpstr.replace(u'\xa0', u' ')

or

tmpstr = tmpstr.replace('\xa0', ' ')

Nothing works. Any idea? and also

tmpstr = 'reimbursement\xa0up to 100 Euros per day'

tmpstr = '{"amount_paid":0,"checked_in":false,"checkin_date":"","checkin_secret":"xxx","data":{"Accomodation":{"Accomodation":"Of your choice booked by yourself (reimbursement\u00a0up to 100 Euros per day)","Additional information":""},"Administration":{"Accomodation 1":"","Accomodation 2":"","Accomodation price 1":"","Accomodation price 2":"","Date of birth":"","From 2":"","Membership":"Accepted","Nationality":"","Notes":"","Other reimbursements":"","Phone number":"","To 2":"","Transport reimbursement":""},"Financial help for travel":{"Apply for reimbursement":"No","Could you please elaborate a bit upon the reasons why ?":"","What would be the estimated amount of the travel reimbursement you would need ?":""},"Participation mode":{"From":"31/10/2021","How do you plan to participate?":"In person","To":"13/11/2021"},"Personal Data":{"Affiliation":"xxx","Country":"Italy","Email Address":"xxx","Expertise and topic of research":"xxx","First Name":"xxx","Gender":"Male","I do not want my name and email address to be kept and used by the Institut Pascal for future mailings for and/or by the Institut Pascal":"No","I do not want my pictures to be published on the IPa website and social networks":"No","Last Name":"xxx","Position":"PostDoc","Reason that you are interested in participating in this program":"xxx","Special Requirements":"xxx","Would you need an official invitation for visa-purposes ?":"No"}},"event_id":xxx,"full_name":"xxx","paid":false,"personal_data":{"affiliation":"xxx","country":"xxx","email":"xxx","firstName":"xxx","phone":"","position":"xxx","surname":"xxx","title":"Male"},"price":0,"registrant_id":"11349","registration_date":"2021-07-10T22:08:12.380610+00:00","ticket_price":0}'

Thanks

`tmpstr.strip()` ? or how about using `tmpstr = re.sub('\xa0', '', tmpstr)` — Ghost Ops, Sep 24 '21 at 14:00
are u working with json or nested dictionaries or something like that? — Ghost Ops, Sep 24 '21 at 14:02
I also tried `tmpstr = re.sub('\xa0', '', tmpstr)` and it's not working I work with json — emvl, Sep 24 '21 at 14:07
i have the same problem with nested dictionaries, don't know whats the problem still :( sry — Ghost Ops, Sep 24 '21 at 14:10
Can you provide with the string on which you are working on? — Danish Bansal, Sep 24 '21 at 14:11
Of your choice booked by yourself (reimbursement\xa0up to 100 Euros per day) — emvl, Sep 24 '21 at 14:13
it is the value of a form field to which participants have responded. I am using this form for event registrations and am having this problem only for one event I really don't understand. — emvl, Sep 24 '21 at 14:17
The second solution with `replace` works for me in my python console. — T.Trassoudaine, Sep 24 '21 at 14:40

Danish Bansal · Answer 1 · 2021-09-24T15:17:40.560

1

You can try passing your string from a regular expression like below

[0-9a-zA-Z \.\-_{add more special characters}]*

* matches the previous token between zero and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy)
0-9 matches a single character in the range between 0 (index 48) and 9 (index 57) (case sensitive)
a-z matches a single character in the range between a (index 97) and z (index 122) (case sensitive)
A-Z matches a single character in the range between A (index 65) and Z (index 90) (case sensitive)
"space" matches the character with index 3210 (2016 or 408) literally (case sensitive)
. matches the character . with index 4610 (2E16 or 568) literally (case sensitive)
- matches the character - with index 4510 (2D16 or 558) literally (case sensitive)
_ matches the character _ with index 9510 (5F16 or 1378) literally (case sensitive)

You can paste your string here and see if this works for you before implementing in code

You can also look at this answer. It is the opposite of mine. This answer is removing \x chars using regex.

Example python code

import re

text = "reimbursement\xa0up to 100 Euros per day"
pattern = r'[0-9a-zA-Z\.\-_]*'

print(" ".join([i.strip() for i in re.findall(pattern, text)]))

# -----------------------------------------------

print(re.sub(r'[^\x00-\x7F]+', ' ', text).encode('utf-8').decode('utf-8', 'ignore').strip())

edited Sep 24 '21 at 15:17

answered Sep 24 '21 at 14:52

Danish Bansal

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Thank you. I'm sorry I didn't understand your answer. Could you give me an example in python please ? – emvl Sep 24 '21 at 14:59
I have edited please see if works and tell me! – Danish Bansal Sep 24 '21 at 15:24
Thank You very much ! It's not working. Here's the entire string : – emvl Sep 27 '21 at 07:15
I couldn't add the string in the comment so I did edit my question with the entire string – emvl Sep 27 '21 at 07:23
I did `tmpstr = tmpstr.replace(u'\\u00a0', u' ')` and it's working. I dont know why \\u00a0 became \xa0 – emvl Sep 27 '21 at 09:45
`u' '` is \xa0 itself you replacing `u'\\u00a0'` with `u' '` – Danish Bansal Sep 27 '21 at 10:14

Python how to replace \xa0 with space

1 Answers1