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Python Removing non-alphabetical characters with exceptions

I am having a hard time doing Data Analysis on a large text that has lots of non-alphabetical chars. I tried using
string = filter(str.isalnum, string)
but I also have "#" in my text that I want to keep. How do I make an exception for a character like "#" ?

It is easier to use regular expressions:
string = re.sub("[^A-Za-z0-9#]", "", string)

You can use re.sub
re.sub(r'[^\w\s\d#]', '', string)
Example:
>>> re.sub(r'[^\w\s\d#]', '', 'This is # string 123 *$^%')
This is # string 123

One way to do this would be to create a function that returns True or False if an input character is valid.
import string
valid_characters = string.ascii_letters + string.digits + '#'
def is_valid_character(character):
return character in valid_characters
# Instead of using `filter`, we `join` all characters in the input string
# if `is_valid_character` is `True`.
def get_valid_characters(string):
return "".join(char for char in string if is_valid_character(char))
Some example output:
>>> print(valid_characters)
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789#
>>> get_valid_characters("!Hello_#world?")
'Helloworld'
>>> get_valid_characters("user#example")
'user#example'
A simpler way to write it would be using regex. This will accomplish the same thing:
import re
def get_valid_characters(string):
return re.sub(r"[^\w\d#]", "", string)

You could use a lambda function to specify your allowed characters. But also note that filter returns a <filter object> which is an iterator over the returned values. So you will have to stich it back to a string:
string = "?filter_#->me3!"
extra_chars = "#!"
filtered_object = filter(lambda c: c.isalnum() or c in extra_chars, string)
string = "".join(filtered_object)
print(string)
Gives:
filter#me3!

How to replace/delete a string in python

how can I replace/delete a part of a string, like this
string = '{DDBF1F} this is my string {DEBC1F}'
#{DDBF1F} the code between Parentheses is random, I only know it is made out of 6 characters
the output should be
this is my string
I tried this, I know it doesn't work, but I tried :3
string = '{DDBF1F} Hello {DEBC1F}'
string.replace(f'{%s%s%s%s%s%s}', 'abc')
print(string)

Use the re library to perform a regex replace, like this:
import re
text = '{DDBF1F} Hello {DEBC1F}'
result = re.sub(r"(\s?\{[A-F0-9]{6}\}\s?)", "", text)
print(result)

If the length of the strings within the brackets is fixed, you can use slicing to get the inner substring:
>>> string = '{DDBF1F} this is my string {DEBC1F}'
>>> string[8:-8]
' this is my string '
(string[9:-9] if you want to remove the surrounding spaces)
If hardcoding the indexes feels bad, they can be derived using str.index (if you can be certain that the string will not contain an embedded '}'):
>>> start = string.index('}')
>>> start
7
>>> end = string.index('{', start)
>>> end
27
>>> string[start+1:end]
' this is my string '

This code works
string = '{DDBF1F} this is my string {DEBC1F}'
st=string.split(' ')
new_str=''
for i in st:
if i.startswith('{') and i.endswith('}'):
pass
else:
new_str=new_str+" "+ i
print(new_str)

Slice string at last digit in Python

So I have strings with a date somewhere in the middle, like 111_Joe_Smith_2010_Assessment and I want to truncate them such that they become something like 111_Joe_Smith_2010. The code that I thought would work is
reverseString = currentString[::-1]
stripper = re.search('\d', reverseString)
But for some reason this doesn't always give me the right result. Most of the time it does, but every now and then, it will output a string that looks like 111_Joe_Smith_2010_A.
If anyone knows what's wrong with this, it would be super helpful!

You can use re.sub and $ to match and substitute alphabetical characters
and underscores until the end of the string:
import re
d = ['111_Joe_Smith_2010_Assessment', '111_Bob_Smith_2010_Test_assessment']
new_s = [re.sub('[a-zA-Z_]+$', '', i) for i in d]
Output:
['111_Joe_Smith_2010', '111_Bob_Smith_2010']

You could strip non-digit characters from the end of the string using re.sub like this:
>>> import re
>>> re.sub(r'\D+$', '', '111_Joe_Smith_2010_Assessment')
'111_Joe_Smith_2010'
For your input format you could also do it with a simple loop:
>>> s = '111_Joe_Smith_2010_Assessment'
>>> i = len(s) - 1
>>> while not s[i].isdigit():
... i -= 1
...
>>> s[:i+1]
'111_Joe_Smith_2010'

You can use the following approach:
def clean_names():
names = ['111_Joe_Smith_2010_Assessment', '111_Bob_Smith_2010_Test_assessment']
for name in names:
while not name[-1].isdigit():
name = name[:-1]
print(name)

Here is another solution using rstrip() to remove trailing letters and underscores, which I consider a pretty smart alternative to re.sub() as used in other answers:
import string
s = '111_Joe_Smith_2010_Assessment'
new_s = s.rstrip(f'{string.ascii_letters}_') # For Python 3.6+
new_s = s.rstrip(string.ascii_letters+'_') # For other Python versions
print(new_s) # 111_Joe_Smith_2010

regex to match a word and everything after it?

I need to dump some http data as a string from the http packet which i have in string format am trying to use the regular expression below to match 'data:'and everything after it,Its not working . I am new to regex and python
>>>import re
>>>pat=re.compile(r'(?:/bdata:/b)?\w$')
>>>string=" dnfhndkn data: ndknfdjoj pop"
>>>res=re.match(pat,string)
>>>print res
None

re.match matches only at the beginning of the string. Use re.search to match at any position. (See search() vs. match())
>>> import re
>>> pat = re.compile(r'(?:/bdata:/b)?\w$')
>>> string = " dnfhndkn data: ndknfdjoj pop"
>>> res = re.search(pat,string)
>>> res
<_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x0000000002838100>
>>> res.group()
'p'
To match everything, you need to change \w with .*. Also remove /b.
>>> import re
>>> pat = re.compile(r'(?:data:).*$')
>>> string = " dnfhndkn data: ndknfdjoj pop"
>>> res = re.search(pat,string)
>>> print res.group()
data: ndknfdjoj pop

No need for a regular expression here. You can just slice the string:
>>> string
' dnfhndkn data: ndknfdjoj pop'
>>> string.index('data')
10
>>> string[string.index('data'):]
'data: ndknfdjoj pop'
str.index('data') returns the point in the string where the substring data is found. The slice from this position to the end string[10:] gives you the part of the string you are interested in.
By the way, string is a potentially problematic variable name if you are planning on using the string module at any point...

you can just do:
string.split("data:")[1]
assuming "data:" appears only once in each string

python string pattern matching

new_str="##2##*##1"
new_str1="##3##*##5##7"
How to split the above string in python
for val in new_str.split("##*"):
logging.debug("=======")
logging.debug(val[2:]) // will give
for st in val.split("##*"):
//how to get the values after ## in new_str and new_str1

I don't understand the question.
Are you trying to split a string by a delimiter? Then use split:
>>> a = "##2##*##1"
>>> b = "##3##*##5##7"
>>>
>>> a.split("##*")
['##2', '##1']
>>> b.split("##*")
['##3', '##5##7']
Are you trying to strip extraneous characters from a string? Then use strip:
>>> c = b.split("##*")[1]
>>> c
'##5##7'
>>> c.strip("#")
'5##7'
Are you trying to remove all the hashes (#) from a string? Then use replace:
>>> c.replace("#","")
'57'
Are you trying to find all the characters after "##"? Then use rsplit with its optional argument to split only once:
>>> a.rsplit("##",1)
['##2##*', '1']