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Subject: Re: string.replace doesn't removes ":"
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On Saturday, February 9, 2013 5:04:18 AM UTC-6, Joshua Robinson wrote:
> Hi Monte-Pythons,
>=20
> x =3D "this is a simple : text: that has colon"
> s =3D x.replace(string.punctuation, "");  OR
> s =3D x.replace(string.punctuation, "");=20
> print x   # 'this is a simple : text: that has colon'
>=20
> # The colon is still in the text !!!!
>=20
> Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong ?

Not a bug, you are just expecting Python to read your mind. In actuality wh=
at you are doing is asking the method "string.replace()" to replace the 32 =
char string:

   '!"#$%&\'()*+,-./:;<=3D>?@[\\]^_`{|}~'=20

with the null string:=20

   ""

...what you INTENDED to do was have Python find every occurrence the each c=
har in the string you passed and replace them with the null string. You are=
 assuming the replace method handles sequences in the manner you are projec=
ting. Sorry, but string#replace does not work that way. Whether or not it s=
hould is up for debate[1].

However, you can create a loop and pass the arguments "one-by-one" into the=
 method:

py> s =3D "a:b  :c: d"
py> for char in string.punctuation:
	s =3D s.replace(char, "")=09
py> s
'ab  c d'

But this seems really wasteful if all you want is to remove colons. Are you=
 just removing the colons or truly wanting to remove ALL punctuation from t=
he string?

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
 REFERENCES:
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=
=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

[1]: Should string.replace handle list, tuple and dict arguments in additio=
n to strings?

py> string.replace(('a', 'b', 'c'), 'abcdefgabc')
'defg'
py> string.replace(['a', 'b', 'c'], 'abcdefgabc')
'defg'
py> string.replace({'a':'A', 'b':'2', 'c':'C'}, 'abcdefgabc')
'A2CdefgA2C'

This would be a more consistent approach to me. Handling only string argume=
nts is woefully inadequate. Why would you have a programmer write a loop fo=
r this every time?=20

@pydev&GvR
What is the justification for not processing (at the minimum) multiple argu=
ments? Do you think strings will most often only need one modification?