CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpython-2.7unicode-string
P A N
P A N

Reputation: 5922

Remove unicode [u']

I have this string, input from a webpage.

s = "[u'967208', u'411600', u'460273']"

I want to remove the brackets [ ] and u and '.

I would also like to make new line breaks instead of the commas ,.

I have spent much time searching for a solution, including encoding and regex, but I can't seem to get it working.

Updated: This is what I use to retrieve the string:

import selenium
import re
input = webdriver.find_element_by_class_name("class_name")
s = re.findall("((?<=\()[0-9]*)", input.text)

Upvotes: 1

Views: 864

Answers (2)

Padraic Cunningham
Padraic Cunningham

Reputation: 180401

If you just want the digits with re just use \d+:

import re

s = "[u'967208', u'411600', u'460273']"
print "\n".join(re.findall(r"\d+", s))
967208
411600
460273

It is safe and efficient:

In [7]: timeit "\n".join(literal_eval(s))
100000 loops, best of 3: 11.7 µs per loop

In [8]: r = re.compile(r"\d+")

In [9]: timeit "\n".join(r.findall(s))
1000000 loops, best of 3: 1.35 µs per loop

If your goal is to write each string to a file, you can use the csv module to write the list of strings returned from re.findall, using a newline as the delimiter:

s = u"[u'967208', u'411600', u'460273']"

import csv
import re
with open("out.csv","w") as out:
    wr = csv.writer(out,delimiter="\n")
    r = re.compile("\d+")
    wr.writerow(r.findall(s))

Output:

967208
411600
460273

If you have many strings just iterate calling call r.findall and pass the result to writerow.

I think after the comments the mystery is solved, you had a list of digits all along that was returned from your regex using findall so you can do the following:

u"abc(967208) \n abc2(411600) \n abc3(460273)" # input.text

import csv
import re
with open("out.csv","w") as out:
    wr = csv.writer(out,delimiter="\n")
    r = re.compile("\((\d+)\)")
    wr.writerow(r.findall(input.text))

\((\d+)\) will find 1+ digits inside parens.

Upvotes: 2

TigerhawkT3
TigerhawkT3

Reputation: 49318

>>> import ast
>>> s = "[u'967208', u'411600', u'460273']"
>>> a = ast.literal_eval(s)
>>> print(*a, sep='\n')
967208
411600
460273

Upvotes: 6

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