pythonregexpython-2.xcharacter-properties

Python and regular expression with Unicode

I need to delete some Unicode symbols from the string 'بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ'

I know they exist here for sure. I tried:

re.sub('([\u064B-\u0652\u06D4\u0670\u0674\u06D5-\u06ED]+)', '', 'بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ')

but it doesn't work. String stays the same. What am I doing wrong?

Solution

  • Are you using python 2.x or 3.0?

    If you're using 2.x, try making the regex string a unicode-escape string, with 'u'. Since it's regex it's good practice to make your regex string a raw string, with 'r'. Also, putting your entire pattern in parentheses is superfluous.

    re.sub(ur'[\u064B-\u0652\u06D4\u0670\u0674\u06D5-\u06ED]+', '', ...)

    http://docs.python.org/tutorial/introduction.html#unicode-strings

    Edit:

    It's also good practice to use the re.UNICODE/re.U/(?u) flag for unicode regexes, but it only affects character class aliases like \w or \b, of which this pattern does not use any and so would not be affected by.