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Insert variable into text search string

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  Insert variable into text search string Kevin Glover <kevingloveruk@gmail.com> - 2014-02-19 11:39 -0800
    Re: Insert variable into text search string MRAB <python@mrabarnett.plus.com> - 2014-02-19 19:46 +0000
    Re: Insert variable into text search string Jussi Piitulainen <jpiitula@ling.helsinki.fi> - 2014-02-19 21:59 +0200
    Re: Insert variable into text search string Kevin Glover <kevingloveruk@gmail.com> - 2014-02-19 12:15 -0800
      Re: Insert variable into text search string Chris Angelico <rosuav@gmail.com> - 2014-02-20 13:06 +1100

#66713 — Insert variable into text search string

These two lines are from a program that carries out a phrase search of Wikipedia and returns the total number of times that the specific phrase occurs. It is essential that the search contains an apostrophe:

results = w.search("\"of the cat's\"", type=ALL, start=1, count=1)
print results.total

I want to replace the word "cat" with a variable, e.g.

q = "cat"

so that I can generate the same search format for a list of different words. How do I format the search string to include the variable, please? I am using Python 2.7.

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#66714

On 2014-02-19 19:39, Kevin Glover wrote:
> These two lines are from a program that carries out a phrase search of Wikipedia and returns the total number of times that the specific phrase occurs. It is essential that the search contains an apostrophe:
>
> results = w.search("\"of the cat's\"", type=ALL, start=1, count=1)
> print results.total
>
> I want to replace the word "cat" with a variable, e.g.
>
> q = "cat"
>
> so that I can generate the same search format for a list of different words. How do I format the search string to include the variable, please? I am using Python 2.7.
>
Try string concatenation:

     results = w.search("\"of the " + q + "'s\"", type=ALL, start=1, 
count=1)

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#66715

Kevin Glover writes:

> These two lines are from a program that carries out a phrase search
> of Wikipedia and returns the total number of times that the specific
> phrase occurs. It is essential that the search contains an
> apostrophe:
> 
> results = w.search("\"of the cat's\"", type=ALL, start=1, count=1)
> print results.total
> 
> I want to replace the word "cat" with a variable, e.g.
> 
> q = "cat"
> 
> so that I can generate the same search format for a list of
> different words. How do I format the search string to include the
> variable, please? I am using Python 2.7.

Format is the right word: look up the .format method of strings.

   >>> '''"of the {q}'s"'''.format(q='kangaroo')
   '"of the kangaroo\'s"'

That's with Python 2.7.3. An older mechanism uses the percent sign for
place holders and as an operator.

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#66716

Thank you both so much. I had tried % but not successfully.

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#66728

On Thu, Feb 20, 2014 at 7:15 AM, Kevin Glover <kevingloveruk@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thank you both so much. I had tried % but not successfully.

To do it with %, just do this:

whatever = "cat"
results = w.search("\"of the %s's\""%whatever, type=ALL, start=1, count=1)

Use either that or .format(), whichever you like - both are fully
supported, and they have different strengths.

ChrisA

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