CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonstringcase-insensitive
Adam Ernst
Adam Ernst

Reputation: 54060

Case insensitive replace

What's the easiest way to do a case-insensitive string replacement in Python?

Upvotes: 251

Views: 169725

Answers (11)

Nico Bako
Nico Bako

Reputation: 119

This function uses both the str.replace() and re.findall() functions. It will replace all occurences of pattern in string with repl in a case-insensitive way.

def replace_all(pattern, repl, string) -> str:
   occurences = re.findall(pattern, string, re.IGNORECASE)
   for occurence in occurences:
       string = string.replace(occurence, repl)
   return string

Upvotes: 7

Chadee Fouad
Chadee Fouad

Reputation: 2948

1 line simple solution without imports :-)

words = 'GREETINGS from EGYPT. GreeTings from Cairo'
replace_what, replace_with,  = 'Greetings', 'Hello'

result = ' '.join([replace_with if word.lower() == replace_what.lower() else word for word in words.split(' ')])
print (result)

The result is:

Hello from EGYPT. Hello from Cairo

Upvotes: 1

Murray
Murray

Reputation: 1257

An interesting observation about syntax details and options:

# Python 3.7.2 (tags/v3.7.2:9a3ffc0492, Dec 23 2018, 23:09:28) [MSC v.1916 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32
>>> import re
>>> old = "TREEROOT treeroot TREerOot"

>>> re.sub(r'(?i)treeroot', 'grassroot', old)
'grassroot grassroot grassroot'

>>> re.sub(r'treeroot', 'grassroot', old)
'TREEROOT grassroot TREerOot'

>>> re.sub(r'treeroot', 'grassroot', old, flags=re.I)
'grassroot grassroot grassroot'

>>> re.sub(r'treeroot', 'grassroot', old, re.I)
'TREEROOT grassroot TREerOot'

Using the (?i) prefix in the match expression or adding flags=re.I as a fourth argument will result in a case-insensitive match - however using just re.I as the fourth argument does not result in case-insensitive match.

For comparison:

>>> re.findall(r'treeroot', old, re.I)
['TREEROOT', 'treeroot', 'TREerOot']

>>> re.findall(r'treeroot', old)
['treeroot']

Upvotes: 7

anddan
anddan

Reputation: 31

i='I want a hIPpo for my birthday'
key='hippo'
swp='giraffe'

o=(i.lower().split(key))
c=0
p=0
for w in o:
    o[c]=i[p:p+len(w)]
    p=p+len(key+w)
    c+=1
print(swp.join(o))

Upvotes: 1

Stan S.
Stan S.

Reputation: 277

I was having \t being converted to the escape sequences (scroll a bit down), so I noted that re.sub converts backslashed escaped characters to escape sequences.

To prevent that I wrote the following:

Replace case insensitive.

import re
    def ireplace(findtxt, replacetxt, data):
        return replacetxt.join(  re.compile(findtxt, flags=re.I).split(data)  )

Also, if you want it to replace with the escape characters, like the other answers here that are getting the special meaning bashslash characters converted to escape sequences, just decode your find and, or replace string. In Python 3, might have to do something like .decode("unicode_escape") # python3

findtxt = findtxt.decode('string_escape') # python2
replacetxt = replacetxt.decode('string_escape') # python2
data = ireplace(findtxt, replacetxt, data)

Tested in Python 2.7.8

Upvotes: 1

Blair Conrad
Blair Conrad

Reputation: 241790

The string type doesn't support this. You're probably best off using the regular expression sub method with the re.IGNORECASE option.

>>> import re
>>> insensitive_hippo = re.compile(re.escape('hippo'), re.IGNORECASE)
>>> insensitive_hippo.sub('giraffe', 'I want a hIPpo for my birthday')
'I want a giraffe for my birthday'

Upvotes: 290

viebel
viebel

Reputation: 20670

In a single line:

import re
re.sub("(?i)hello","bye", "hello HeLLo HELLO") #'bye bye bye'
re.sub("(?i)he\.llo","bye", "he.llo He.LLo HE.LLO") #'bye bye bye'

Or, use the optional "flags" argument:

import re
re.sub("hello", "bye", "hello HeLLo HELLO", flags=re.I) #'bye bye bye'
re.sub("he\.llo", "bye", "he.llo He.LLo HE.LLO", flags=re.I) #'bye bye bye'

Upvotes: 63

rsmoorthy
rsmoorthy

Reputation: 2372

Continuing on bFloch's answer, this function will change not one, but all occurrences of old with new - in a case insensitive fashion. 

def ireplace(old, new, text):
    idx = 0
    while idx < len(text):
        index_l = text.lower().find(old.lower(), idx)
        if index_l == -1:
            return text
        text = text[:index_l] + new + text[index_l + len(old):]
        idx = index_l + len(new) 
    return text

Upvotes: 25

johv
johv

Reputation: 4594

Like Blair Conrad says string.replace doesn't support this.

Use the regex re.sub, but remember to escape the replacement string first. Note that there's no flags-option in 2.6 for re.sub, so you'll have to use the embedded modifier '(?i)' (or a RE-object, see Blair Conrad's answer). Also, another pitfall is that sub will process backslash escapes in the replacement text, if a string is given. To avoid this one can instead pass in a lambda.

Here's a function:

import re
def ireplace(old, repl, text):
    return re.sub('(?i)'+re.escape(old), lambda m: repl, text)

>>> ireplace('hippo?', 'giraffe!?', 'You want a hiPPO?')
'You want a giraffe!?'
>>> ireplace(r'[binfolder]', r'C:\Temp\bin', r'[BinFolder]\test.exe')
'C:\\Temp\\bin\\test.exe'

Upvotes: 11

bFloch
bFloch

Reputation: 147

This doesn't require RegularExp

def ireplace(old, new, text):
    """ 
    Replace case insensitive
    Raises ValueError if string not found
    """
    index_l = text.lower().index(old.lower())
    return text[:index_l] + new + text[index_l + len(old):]

Upvotes: 7

Unknown
Unknown

Reputation: 46781

import re
pattern = re.compile("hello", re.IGNORECASE)
pattern.sub("bye", "hello HeLLo HELLO")
# 'bye bye bye'

Upvotes: 115

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