How to strip a specific word from a string?

Question

I need to strip a specific word from a string.

But I find python strip method seems can't recognize an ordered word. The just strip off any characters passed to the parameter.

For example:

>>> papa = "papa is a good man"
>>> app = "app is important"
>>> papa.lstrip('papa')
" is a good man"
>>> app.lstrip('papa')
" is important"

How could I strip a specified word with python?

Did you look at the documentation of `S.lstrip`? It does something completely different to what you want to do. You want to `replace` this string with nothing. — Benjamin Bannier, May 15 '14 at 04:02
@DSM I guess the output should be `ya`. Lets wait for OP to confirm — thefourtheye, May 15 '14 at 04:05
@zen Are you sure the accepted answer is fine? Try this `print "papa is papa is papa".replace('papa', '')` and if the output is fine with you, then the accepted answer is correct. — thefourtheye, May 15 '14 at 04:31
Just wanted to add something. Beware that if you are attempting to strip the last word in a sentence then you will be left with a space at the end of the sentence and this may not be desired. For example if you did `papa.replace('man', '')`. You will end up with `'papa is a good '` (notice the space after `'good'`. — Ely Fialkoff, Sep 24 '18 at 15:15

metatoaster · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-15T04:47:08.300

107

Use str.replace.

>>> papa.replace('papa', '')
' is a good man'
>>> app.replace('papa', '')
'app is important'

Alternatively use re and use regular expressions. This will allow the removal of leading/trailing spaces.

>>> import re
>>> papa = 'papa is a good man'
>>> app = 'app is important'
>>> papa3 = 'papa is a papa, and papa'
>>>
>>> patt = re.compile('(\s*)papa(\s*)')
>>> patt.sub('\\1mama\\2', papa)
'mama is a good man'
>>> patt.sub('\\1mama\\2', papa3)
'mama is a mama, and mama'
>>> patt.sub('', papa3)
'is a, and'

edited May 15 '14 at 04:47

answered May 15 '14 at 04:02

metatoaster

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2

Try `print "papa is papa is papa".replace('papa', '')` – thefourtheye May 15 '14 at 04:30
1

Got distracted and didn't finish up with the examples for using `re`, which will allow removal of leading/trailing spaces. – metatoaster May 15 '14 at 04:41
@thefourtheye It returns ' is is '. All the three 'papa's are removed as what is actually needed. May I know what should one infer from your point? – Shayan Shafiq Oct 05 '20 at 15:36
1

@metatoaster "papa.replace('papa', '').strip()" also removes the leading and trailing spaces. – Shayan Shafiq Oct 05 '20 at 15:39

score 17 · Answer 2 · answered May 15 '14 at 04:02

17

Easiest way would be to simply replace it with an empty string.

s = s.replace('papa', '')

answered May 15 '14 at 04:02

iamdev

698
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You might want to also add a space after papa - I assume he doesn't want a leading space left in the string. – Jacob Kudria May 15 '14 at 04:15
2

Try `print "papa is papa is papa".replace('papa', '')` – thefourtheye May 15 '14 at 04:32
@JacobKudria "s = s.replace('papa', '').strip()" also serves the purpose. – Shayan Shafiq Oct 05 '20 at 15:41

score 4 · Answer 3 · edited Feb 21 '17 at 10:31

4

You can also use a regexp with re.sub:

article_title_str = re.sub(r'(\s?-?\|?\s?Times of India|\s?-?\|?\s?the Times of India|\s?-?\|?\s+?Gadgets No'',
                           article_title_str, flags=re.IGNORECASE)

edited Feb 21 '17 at 10:31

bfontaine

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answered Feb 21 '17 at 10:00

Akshay Karapurkar

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score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 15 '21 at 02:33

If want to remove the word from only the start of the string, then you could do:

  string[string.startswith(prefix) and len(prefix):]

Where string is your string variable and prefix is the prefix you want to remove from your string variable.

For example:

  >>> papa = "papa is a good man. papa is the best."  
  >>> prefix = 'papa'
  >>> papa[papa.startswith(prefix) and len(prefix):]
  ' is a good man. papa is the best.'

Michael Strobel · Answer 5 · 2017-03-23T20:05:31.553

Providing you know the index value of the beginning and end of each word you wish to replace in the character array, and you only wish to replace that particular chunk of data, you could do it like this.

>>> s = "papa is papa is papa"
>>> s = s[:8]+s[8:13].replace("papa", "mama")+s[13:]
>>> print(s)
papa is mama is papa

Alternatively, if you also wish to retain the original data structure, you could store it in a dictionary.

>>> bin = {}
>>> s = "papa is papa is papa"
>>> bin["0"] = s
>>> s = s[:8]+s[8:13].replace("papa", "mama")+s[13:]
>>> print(bin["0"])
papa is papa is papa
>>> print(s)
papa is mama is papa

score 2 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 16 '20 at 11:45

A bit 'lazy' way to do this is to use startswith- it is easier to understand this rather regexps. However regexps might work faster, I haven't measured.

>>> papa = "papa is a good man"
>>> app = "app is important"
>>> strip_word = 'papa'
>>> papa[len(strip_word):] if papa.startswith(strip_word) else papa
' is a good man'
>>> app[len(strip_word):] if app.startswith(strip_word) else app
'app is important'

score 2 · Answer 7 · edited Apr 30 '21 at 03:31

2

Check it:

use replace()
------------
var.replace("word for replace"," ")
-----------------------------------
one = " papa is a good man"

two = " app is important"

one.replace(" papa ", " ")

output=> " is a good man"

two.replace(" app ", " ")

output=> " is important

edited Apr 30 '21 at 03:31

Sallar Rabiei

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answered Apr 29 '21 at 21:19

parth gosai

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score 2 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 26 '22 at 14:20

If we're talking about prefixes and suffixes and your version of Python is at least 3.9, then you can use these new methods:

>>> 'TestHook'.removeprefix('Test')
'Hook'
>>> 'BaseTestCase'.removeprefix('Test')
'BaseTestCase'

>>> 'MiscTests'.removesuffix('Tests')
'Misc'
>>> 'TmpDirMixin'.removesuffix('Tests')
'TmpDirMixin'

How to strip a specific word from a string?

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