On Jul 31, 3:56*pm, Mensanator <mensana...@aol.comwrote:
On Jul 31, 3:07*pm, chrispoliq...@gmail.com wrote:
I am using regular expressions to search a string (always full
sentences, maybe more than one sentence) for common abbreviations and
remove the periods. *I need to break the string into different
sentences but split('.') doesn't solve the whole problem because of
possible periods in the middle of a sentence.
So I have...
----------------
import re
middle_abbr = re.compile('[A-Za-z0-9]\.[A-Za-z0-9]\.')
# this will find abbreviations like e.g. or i.e. in the middle of a
sentence.
# then I want to remove the periods.
----------------
I want to keep the ie or eg but just take out the periods. *Any
ideas? *Of course newString = middle_abbr.sub('',txt) where txt is the
string will take out the entire abbreviation with the alphanumeric
characters included.
>middle_abbr = re.compile('[A-Za-z0-9]\.[A-Za-z0-9]\.')
s = 'A test, i.e., an example.'
a = middle_abbr.search(s) * * *# find the abbreviation
b = re.compile('\.') * * * * * # period pattern
c = b.sub('',a.group(0)) * * * # remove periods from abbreviation
d = middle_abbr.sub(c,s) * * * # substitute new abbr for old
d
'A test, ie, an example.'
A more versatile version:
import re
middle_abbr = re.compile('[A-Za-z0-9]\.[A-Za-z0-9]\.')
s = 'A test, i.e., an example.'
a = middle_abbr.search(s) # find the abbreviation
b = re.compile('\.') # period pattern
c = b.sub('',a.group(0)) # remove periods from abbreviation
d = middle_abbr.sub(c,s) # substitute new abbr for old
print d
print
print
s = """A test, i.e., an example.
Yet another test, i.e., example with 2 abbr."""
a = middle_abbr.search(s) # find the abbreviation
c = b.sub('',a.group(0)) # remove periods from abbreviation
d = middle_abbr.sub(c,s) # substitute new abbr for old
print d
print
print
s = """A test, i.e., an example.
Yet another test, i.e., example with 2 abbr.
A multi-test, e.g., one with different abbr."""
done = False
while not done:
a = middle_abbr.search(s) # find the abbreviation
if a:
c = b.sub('',a.group(0)) # remove periods from abbreviation
s = middle_abbr.sub(c,s,1) # substitute new abbr for old ONCE
else: # repeat until all removed
done = True
print s
## A test, ie, an example.
##
##
## A test, ie, an example.
## Yet another test, ie, example with 2 abbr.'
##
##
## A test, ie, an example.
## Yet another test, ie, example with 2 abbr.
## A multi-test, eg, one with different abbr.
