How to remove all the elements that contain special characters and strings?

Question

I'm trying to remove all the elements that contain special characters or strings but some of the elements still there.

description_list = ['$', '2,850', 'door', '.', 'sale', '...', 'trades', '.', 'pay', 'pp', 'fees', 'shipping', 'cost', 'desirable', '\x932', 'liner', 'dial\x94', 'eta', 'movement', 'watch', '\x93safe', 'queen\x94', ',', 'pristine', 'condition', '.', 'i\x92m', 'original', 'owner', 'worn', 'watch', 'gently', 'handful', 'times', '.', 'protective', 'plastics', 'still', 'intact', 'case', 'back', ',', 'parts', 'clasp', 'full', 'original', 'kit', 'you\x92ll', 'see', 'pics', '.', 'includes', 'original', 'boxes', ',', 'manuals', ',', 'warranty', 'card', 'ad', ',', 'spare', 'bracelet', 'links', ',', 'dive', 'strap', '&', 'extension', ',', 'etc', 'payment', 'paypal', ',', 'due', 'quickly', 'upon', 'agreement', 'purchase', 'watch', '.', 'holds', ',', 'delays', ',', 'games', '.', 'pay', 'pp', 'fees', 'shipping', 'us', 'postal', 'service', 'priority', 'mail', 'w/signature', 'confirmation', ',', 'paypal', 'verified', 'address', 'inside', 'usa', '.', 'please', 'don\x92t', 'ask', 'ship', 'outside', 'usa', '.', 'exceptions', 'made', '.', 'please', 'e-mail', '[', 'email', 'protected', ']', '.', 'also', 'text', 'call', '210-705-3383.', 'name', 'james', 'crockett', 'thank', ',', 'james', 'crockett', '$', '2,850', 'door', '.', 'sale', '...', 'trades', '.', 'pay', 'pp', 'fees', 'shipping', 'cost', 'desirable', '\x932', 'liner', 'dial\x94', 'eta', 'movement', 'watch', '\x93safe', 'queen\x94', ',', 'pristine', 'condition', '.', 'i\x92m', 'original', 'owner', 'worn', 'watch', 'gently', 'handful', 'times', '.', 'protective', 'plastics', 'still', 'intact', 'case', 'back', ',', 'parts', 'clasp', 'full', 'original', 'kit', 'you\x92ll', 'see', 'pics', '.', 'includes', 'original', 'boxes', ',', 'manuals', ',', 'warranty', 'card', 'ad', ',', 'spare', 'bracelet', 'links', ',', 'dive', 'strap', '&', 'extension', ',', 'etc', 'payment', 'paypal', ',', 'due', 'quickly', 'upon', 'agreement', 'purchase', 'watch', '.', 'holds', ',', 'delays', ',', 'games', '.', 'pay', 'pp', 'fees', 'shipping', 'us', 'postal', 'service', 'priority', 'mail', 'w/signature', 'confirmation', ',', 'paypal', 'verified', 'address', 'inside', 'usa', '.', 'please', 'don\x92t', 'ask', 'ship', 'outside', 'usa', '.', 'exceptions', 'made', '.', 'please', 'e-mail', '[', 'email', 'protected', ']', '.', 'also', 'text', 'call', '210-705-3383.', 'name', 'james', 'crockett', 'thank', ',', 'james', 'crockett']

price_list = [x for x in description_list if any(c.isdigit() for c in x)]

Output

# price_list
['2,850', '\x932', '210-705-3383.', '2,850', '\x932', '210-705-3383.']

Should be like this (the comma is acceptable because want to extract price number)

['2,850', '2,850']

Answer 1

Regex answer

import re

price_list = [x for x in description_list if re.match('\d+(,*\d+)?$', x)]

Answer 2

You were close, assuming you want to retain data that contains digits or digits with commas. The current list comprehension for price_list is returning strings if they contain at least one digit.

[str(x) for x in description_list if str(x).replace(',', '').isdigit()]

Answer 3

You can do an all check inside list comprehension that checks if the string contains all digits or comma and then filter only comma values:

price_list = [x for x in description_list if all(c.isdigit() or c == ',' for c in x) and x != ',']
# ['2,850', '2,850']