Strings & text
Format, split, join, parse, and clean text — everyday Python string patterns.
How to Process Text in Python: Normalize Whitespace and Count Words
A beginner-friendly function that normalizes whitespace in a string and counts total and unique words using Python's standard library.
def process_text(text):
"""Basic text processing: normalize whitespace and count words."""
normalized = " ".join(text.split())
word_count = len(normalized.split())
char_count = len(normalized)
# Count unique words
unique_words = set(normalized.lower().split())
unique_count = len(unique…How to Remove Duplicate Adjacent Spaces in Python
This Python function collapses any sequence of two or more adjacent spaces into a single space, preserving all other characters.
def remove_duplicate_adjacent_spaces(text):
"""Replace sequences of 2+ spaces with a single space."""
result = []
prev_was_space = False
for char in text:
if char == " ":
if not prev_was_space:
result.append(char)
prev_was_space = True
else:
…How to Remove HTML Tags in Python with Regex
Strips all HTML tags from a string using a regular expression and cleans extra whitespace.
import re
def remove_html_tags(text: str) -> str:
"""Remove all HTML tags from the given text using regex."""
# Remove opening and closing tags
clean = re.sub(r'<[^>]+>', '', text)
# Remove any extra whitespace left behind
clean = re.sub(r'\s+', ' ', clean).strip()
return clean
if __name__ ==…How to Replace Multiple Spaces with a Single Space in Python
This snippet uses the `re` module to collapse runs of consecutive spaces in a string into a single space, cleaning up whitespace.
import re
def collapse_spaces(text):
"""Replace multiple consecutive spaces with a single space."""
return re.sub(r' +', ' ', text)
if __name__ == "__main__":
sample = "This has multiple spaces between words."
result = collapse_spaces(sample)
print(f"Original: '{sample}'")
print(f"Co…How to Round Numbers with f-strings in Python
Round numbers directly inside f-string expressions using the built-in round() function for clean, readable output formatting.
def main():
# Values to format with expression-based rounding
price = 19.995
tax_rate = 0.0825
distance = 1234.56789
# Round inside the f-string expression using round()
print(f"Price rounded to cents: ${round(price, 2)}")
# Combine rounding with arithmetic inside the expression
total…How to Slugify a String in Python
Convert any text into a URL-friendly slug using the standard library's unicodedata and re modules.
import re
import unicodedata
def slugify(text):
text = unicodedata.normalize('NFKD', text)
text = text.encode('ascii', 'ignore').decode('ascii')
text = re.sub(r'[^\w\s-]', '', text).strip().lower()
text = re.sub(r'[-\s]+', '-', text)
return text
if __name__ == "__main__":
title = "Hello, Worl…How to Sort Text Alphabetically in Python
Sort words or lines alphabetically with case-insensitive ordering while preserving original casing.
def sort_words(text):
"""Sort words alphabetically (case-insensitive), preserving case."""
words = text.split()
return sorted(words, key=str.lower)
def sort_lines(text):
"""Sort lines alphabetically (case-insensitive), preserving case."""
lines = [line for line in text.splitlines() if line.strip(…How to Sort Text in Python with a Simple Helper Function
A compact helper function that sorts a list of strings or splits a string into words and sorts them alphabetically, with optional reverse ordering.
def sort_text(data, reverse=False):
"""
Sort a list of strings (or a single string split into words) alphabetically.
"""
if isinstance(data, str):
words = data.split()
else:
words = [str(item) for item in data]
return sorted(words, reverse=reverse)
if __name__ == "__main__":
…How to Split Lines and Strip Blank Lines in Python
Split a multiline string into non-empty lines and strip surrounding whitespace using a list comprehension.
import sys
def split_and_strip(text):
"""Split text into non-blank lines, stripping whitespace."""
return [line.strip() for line in text.splitlines() if line.strip()]
if __name__ == "__main__":
sample_text = """ First line
Second line
Third line """
result = split_and_strip(…How to Split Strings in Python (Beginner-Friendly)
Split Python strings by a delimiter into lists, plus a cleanup variant that strips whitespace and filters empty parts.
def split_text(text, delimiter=" "):
"""Split a string by a delimiter and return a list of parts."""
return text.split(delimiter)
def split_text_with_cleanup(text, delimiter=" "):
"""Split a string, stripping whitespace and filtering empty parts."""
parts = text.split(delimiter)
cleaned = [part.s…How to Split a String by Comma in Python
Splits a comma-separated string into a list of trimmed items using Python's built-in split and a list comprehension.
def split_csv(line):
return [item.strip() for item in line.split(",")]
if __name__ == "__main__":
sample = "apple, banana, cherry, date"
result = split_csv(sample)
print(result)
print(f"Number of items: {len(result)}")How to Strip Whitespace in Python
This code demonstrates how to remove leading and trailing whitespace from a string using the built-in strip() method.
def strip_whitespace(text: str) -> str:
return text.strip()
if __name__ == "__main__":
sample = " Hello, world! "
result = strip_whitespace(sample)
print(f"Original: '{sample}'")
print(f"Stripped: '{result}'")How to Summarize Text Statistics in Python
This function returns basic statistics about a string, including character, word, and sentence counts, plus case and digit counts.
def summarize_text(text):
"""Return basic statistics about a string."""
words = text.split()
return {
"characters": len(text),
"words": len(words),
"sentences": text.count(".") + text.count("!") + text.count("?"),
"uppercase": sum(c.isupper() for c in text),
"lowerca…How to Swap Case of Every Character in Python
Swap uppercase to lowercase and lowercase to uppercase for every character in a string using Python's built-in swapcase() method.
def swap_case(text):
"""
Swap uppercase to lowercase and lowercase to uppercase
for every character in the given string.
"""
return text.swapcase()
if __name__ == "__main__":
sample = "Hello World! Python3.9"
result = swap_case(sample)
print(f"Input: {sample}")
print(f"Output: {r…How to Transform Text in Python with a Helper Function
Build a simple Python helper to strip extra whitespace and convert text to upper, lower, or title case.
def transform_text(text, upper=False, lower=False, strip_whitespace=False, title_case=False):
"""Apply common string transformations for beginners."""
result = text
if strip_whitespace:
result = " ".join(result.split())
if upper and lower:
raise ValueError("Cannot apply both upper and…How to Translate Characters in a String with str.maketrans in Python
Build and apply character translation tables with str.maketrans and str.translate to replace, delete, or remap letters in a Python string.
def translate_demo():
# Build a translation table: a→1, e→2, i→3, o→4, u→5
table = str.maketrans("aeiou", "12345")
text = "Hello, Python world! Keep coding, friend."
translated = text.translate(table)
print(f"Original: {text}")
print(f"Translated: {translated}")
# Example wit…How to Truncate a String with Ellipsis in Python
A function that shortens text to a maximum length and appends an ellipsis when truncation occurs, handling edge cases.
def truncate_with_ellipsis(text: str, max_length: int) -> str:
"""Truncate text to max_length, appending ellipsis if truncated."""
if len(text) <= max_length:
return text
if max_length <= 3:
return text[:max_length]
return text[: max_length - 3] + "..."
if __name__ == "__main__":
t…How to Unescape HTML Entities in Python
Convert HTML entities like & and < back to their literal characters using the standard library html module.
import html
def unescape_html_entities(text: str) -> str:
"""Convert HTML entities like & to their character equivalents."""
return html.unescape(text)
if __name__ == "__main__":
sample = "Tom & Jerry <cartoon> "classic" 'fun' © 2024"
result = unescape_html_enti…How to Use Template Strings for Substitution in Python
This code shows how to use Python's Template class for safe string substitution, replacing placeholders like $name with actual values.
from string import Template
def format_user_message(name, role, company):
template = Template("Hello $name! We are glad to have you as our $role at $company.")
return template.substitute(name=name, role=role, company=company)
if __name__ == "__main__":
result = format_user_message("Alice", "Python Develo…How to Validate Text Input in Python: A Simple Text Processor
A Python function that validates a text string by trimming whitespace, then returns a dictionary with character, word, and sentence counts.
def validate_text(text: str) -> dict:
"""Analyze a text string and return basic validation statistics."""
stripped = text.strip()
if not stripped:
return {
"valid": False,
"reason": "Text is empty or only whitespace",
"characters": 0,
"words": 0,
…How to Validate Text Strings in Python
Validate strings with a reusable helper that checks type, length limits, and empty string handling.
def is_valid_text(value, min_length=1, max_length=None, allow_empty=False):
"""
Validate if a value is a string and meets length requirements.
Args:
value: The value to validate
min_length: Minimum allowed length (default 1)
max_length: Maximum allowed length (None = no limit)
…How to build a text helper in Python for beginners
This code provides easy-to-use functions for cleaning text, removing punctuation, counting word frequencies, and summarizing strings — perfect for beginners.
def clean_text(text: str) -> str:
"""Clean and normalize a text string."""
text = text.strip()
text = text.replace(" ", " ")
text = text.capitalize()
text = text.replace(".", ".")
return text
def remove_punctuation(text: str) -> str:
"""Remove common punctuation marks from a string."""
…How to parse key=value pairs in Python
Parse a single line of key=value pairs separated by a delimiter into a Python dictionary.
def parse_key_value_pairs(line: str, delimiter: str = "&") -> dict:
"""Parse a single line of key=value pairs into a dictionary."""
pairs = {}
for token in line.split(delimiter):
if not token.strip():
continue
key, _, value = token.partition("=")
pairs[key.strip()] = val…How to remove punctuation from a string in Python
Remove all punctuation characters from a string using the str.translate method and string.punctuation from the standard library.
import string
def remove_punctuation(text: str) -> str:
return text.translate(str.maketrans("", "", string.punctuation))
if __name__ == "__main__":
sample = "Hello, world! It's a test... (with punctuation) - done?"
cleaned = remove_punctuation(sample)
print(f"Original: {sample}")
print(f"Cleaned:…Browse by section
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Strings & text — Python code examples
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