SpreadTooThin wrote:
> Hi I'm writing a python script that creates directories from user
> input.
> Sometimes the user inputs characters that aren't valid characters for a
> file or directory name.
> Here are the characters that I consider to be valid characters...
>> valid =
> ':./,^0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ '
>> if I have a string called fname I want to go through each character in
> the filename and if it is not a valid character, then I want to replace
> it with a space.
>> This is what I have:
>> def fixfilename(fname):
> valid =
> ':.\,^0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ '
> for i in range(len(fname)):
> if valid.find(fname[i]) < 0:
> fname[i] = ' '
> return fname
>> Anyone think of a simpler solution?
If you want to strip 'em:
>>> valid=':./,^0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ '
>>> filename = '!"£!£$"$££$%$£%$£lasfjalsfjdlasfjasfd()()()somethingelse.dat'
>>> stripped = ''.join(c for c in filename if c in valid)
>>> stripped
'lasfjalsfjdlasfjasfdsomethingelse.dat'
If you want to replace them with something, be careful of the regex
string being built (ie a space character).
import re
>>> re.sub(r'[^%s]' % valid,' ',filename)
' lasfjalsfjdlasfjasfd somethingelse.dat'
Jon.
