So I tried using join()
after splitting a string into words and punctuation but it joins the string with a space in between the word and punctuation.
b = ['Hello', ',', 'who', 'are', 'you', '?']
c = " ".join(b)
But that returns:
c = 'Hello , who are you ?'
and I want:
c = 'Hello, who are you?'
You could join on the punctuation first:
def join_punctuation(seq, characters='.,;?!'):
characters = set(characters)
seq = iter(seq)
current = next(seq)
for nxt in seq:
if nxt in characters:
current += nxt
else:
yield current
current = nxt
yield current
c = ' '.join(join_punctuation(b))
The join_punctuation
generator yields strings with any following punctuation already joined on:
>>> b = ['Hello', ',', 'who', 'are', 'you', '?']
>>> list(join_punctuation(b))
['Hello,', 'who', 'are', 'you?']
>>> ' '.join(join_punctuation(b))
'Hello, who are you?'
Do this after you get the result, not full, but works...
c = re.sub(r' ([^A-Za-z0-9])', r'\1', c)
Output:
c = 'Hello , who are you ?'
>>> c = re.sub(r' ([^A-Za-z0-9])', r'\1', c)
>>> c
'Hello, who are you?'
>>>
Maybe something like:
>>> from string import punctuation
>>> punc = set(punctuation) # or whatever special chars you want
>>> b = ['Hello', ',', 'who', 'are', 'you', '?']
>>> ''.join(w if set(w) <= punc else ' '+w for w in b).lstrip()
'Hello, who are you?'
This adds a space before words in b
which aren't made up entirely of punctuation.
How abt
c = " ".join(b).replace(" ,", ",")