CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonregexstring-length
Tu Hoang
Tu Hoang

Reputation: 4712

Python: Regex and String Length in byte

I am writing a program in python and have some question (I am 100% new to python):

import re

rawData = '7I+8I-7I-9I-8I-'

print len(rawData)

rawData = re.sub("[0-9]I\+","",rawData)
rawData = re.sub("[0-9]I\-","",rawData)

print rawData
  1. How to merge the 2 regex into one using |? It means it will get rid of both 9I- and 9I+ using just one regex operation.
  2. Does len(rawData) return the length of rawData is byte?

Thank you.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 2454

Answers (3)

Facundo Casco
Facundo Casco

Reputation: 10595

See the difference:

$ python3
Python 3.1.3 (r313:86834, May 20 2011, 06:10:42) 
[GCC 4.4.5] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> len('día')   # Unicode text
3
>>> 

$ python
Python 2.7.1 (r271:86832, May 20 2011, 17:19:04) 
[GCC 4.4.5] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> len('día')   # bytes
4
>>> len(u'día')  # Unicode text
3
>>>


Python 3.1.3 (r313:86834, May 20 2011, 06:10:42) 
[GCC 4.4.5] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> len(b'día')
  File "<stdin>", line 1
SyntaxError: bytes can only contain ASCII literal characters.
>>> len(b'dia')
3
>>>

Upvotes: 5

cwallenpoole
cwallenpoole

Reputation: 82048

len refers to the number of characters when applied to a unicode string (this is nuanced, other answers flush that out more), bytes in a encoded string, items in a list (or set, or keys in a dictionary)...

rawData = re.sub("[0-9]I(\+|-)","",rawData)

Upvotes: 0

Fitoria
Fitoria

Reputation: 595

Why don't you take a different approach. With replace method?

Upvotes: 0

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