I want to provide alternative replacement patterns to re.sub.
Let's say i've got two search patterns as alternatives, like this:
re.sub(r"[A-Z]+|[a-z]+", replacementpattern, string)
and instead of providing one replacement pattern I would like to somehow catch which search pattern alternative was matched and provide alternative replacement patterns.
Is this possible?
Thanks.
PS. code specifics here are irrelevant, it's a general question.
You can pass a function to re.sub()
. In the function you can return the value needed based on the captured group. A simple code for illustration:
>>> def fun(m):
... if m:
... if m.group(1):
... return 'x'
... else:
... return 'y'
>>>print re.sub(r"([A-Z]+)|([a-z]+)", fun , "ab")
The function fun()
checks if the match succeeded and based on the captured group, returns the replacement string. If [A-Z]+
was matched, x
is the replacement string else [a-z]+
was matched and y
is the replacement string.
For more information : doc
Usually, you would just use two replacements:
re.sub(r"[A-Z]+", replacement1, string)
re.sub(r"[a-z]+", replacement2, string)
Anticlimactic, right?
It's actually less code than the alternatives usually, and it's far clearer what you're doing.