topic Re: Truncate String - Remove Space in Python Questions

Truncate String - Remove Space

Anonymous User — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:34:14 GMT

Hello,

I'm trying to implement a truncation in my script, which is easy enough, but I need to make the overall script smart enough to remove the last character if it happens to be a space.

For instance, if I have the following code:

variable = "SAMPLE NAME"
truncVar = variable[:7]‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

This ends up returning "SAMPLE ", which is right, but there's a space at the end of the string. I need the script to check for that space, and delete it if it's there, otherwise leave the last character. I can't just reduce the truncated value since the actual names in the variables will vary widely.

Thanks!

Working Script based on correct answer:

variable = "This is a test variable"
trunc = variable[:10].strip()
result = "'" + trunc + "'"
print result
'This is a' # The strip operation removed the ending space, but it left all others‍‍‍‍‍

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

JamesCrandall — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:34:17 GMT

I'd think split() is a better method as long as the space between the two words is how you identify what to evaluate. That way it doesn't have to be a set number of characters to the left or right.

variable = "SAMPLE NAME"
splitVar1 = variable.split()
print splitVar1[0]‍‍‍

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

Anonymous User — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 19:06:05 GMT

I should have expanded a bit more. There is a potential that there could be a space somewhere before the truncated number of characters.

So instead of "Sample_Name" with only one space, we could potentially have "Sam_ple_Name" with two spaces. In the second instance, I need to only remove the last space.

*NOTE* I understand that [:7] as highlighted in my original post would not return both spaces in my second scenario, but the [:7] is theoretical for example only. There are inevitably going to be examples where I have two spaces, but only need one removed if it happens to be the last character.

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

JamesCrandall — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 19:17:59 GMT

Could you clarify that you want "SAMPLE" as an output from these possibilities?

"SAMPLE NAME"

"SAM PLE NAME"

" SAM PLE NAME"

" SAM PLE NAME "

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

DanPatterson_Retired — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:34:20 GMT

are you trying to split on spaces? How complex is it going to get? Do you want to close the gap except for the last one? like this one?

a = 'Sam ple space'
a.split(' ')[:-1]
['Sam', 'ple']
# ----  now slice and splice in one go

"".join(a.split(' ')[:-1])
'Sample'‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

Anonymous User — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 19:37:38 GMT

jamesfreddyc‌, the variable is the name given to individual features (1000's of them), so there will never be a space at the beginning, but there could be a space anywhere in the name of the feature. The variable is part of a concatenation script, but I need that concatenation script to adhere to a maximum set of characters. Since the variable names can range from only a few characters on up to ~100 characters, I need to truncate it. All other parts of the concatenation are standard, so I need to truncate the feature name to 14 characters or less, which places me right at the limit required. The problem is that there are instances where the 14th character just so happens to land on a space, and I need to remove that last space in those instances.

Dan_Patterson‌, I don't need to join the strings back together or anything, I just need to remove the last one.

My end concatenation looks something like this:

(AB-CD-EFGHIJKL-12345)-(Variable)-(XYZ)-(01)

The variable portion is what I'm trying to fix. If the space is left there, then there's an unnecessary space that we want to remove. Instead of "(SAMPLE_)", we need "(SAMPLE)", however, if the name so happens to be "SAM PLE" then we want to retain that space and end up with "(SAM_PLE)".

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

MitchHolley1 — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 19:44:51 GMT

Look into strip(). If you don't pass any parameters, the function will remove spaces before and after a string. I don't know if that will help or not.

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

KevinDunlop — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:34:22 GMT

Try

variable = "SAMPLE NAME"
truncVar = variable[:variable.rfind(' ')]‍‍‍‍

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

JamesCrandall — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:34:25 GMT

The variable portion is what I'm trying to fix. If the space is left there, then there's an unnecessary space that we want to remove. Instead of "(SAMPLE_)", we need "(SAMPLE)", however, if the name so happens to be "SAM PLE" then we want to retain that space and end up with "(SAM_PLE)".

I'm not entirely skilled in string manipulation and there's likely far better solution -- so this is quite limited in scope and would only account for the above scenario if the variable is "SAMPLE " or "SAM PLE NAME". But perhaps it might give you some ideas.

truncVar = ""
variable = "SAM PLE NAME"
splitVarList = variable.split()

if len(splitVarList) < 3:
    truncVar = splitVarList[0].strip()
elif len(splitVarList) == 3:
    truncVar = "%s%s" % (splitVarList[0].strip(),splitVarList[1].strip())

print truncVar‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

Anonymous User — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 20:09:40 GMT

That did the trick. Thanks, Kevin Dunlop‌!

This is exactly what I was looking for:

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

JamesCrandall — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 20:11:19 GMT

I was under the impression that this also needs to account for "SAMPLE NAME" or "SAM PLE NAME"

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

Anonymous User — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:34:28 GMT

James Crandall‌, I didn't test this out fully enough. It worked on the sample I had above, but I ran this same test on different variables and it didn't quite work. I was a bit too hasty there.

variable = "SAMPLE NAME"
trunc = variable[:8]
string = "'" + trunc + "'"
print string
'SAMPLE N' # last character is not a space

truncRemove = trunc[:trunc.rfind(' ')]
string2 = "'" + truncRemove + "'"
print string2
'SAMPLE' # I don't want the "_N" removed

# Since the last character returned in trunc is not a space, the desired result is what was returned in the first print string operation‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Thanks for catching that, jamesfreddyc‌

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

JoshuaBixby — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:34:30 GMT

Mitch Holley‌ already provided the answer, i.e., set your truncation width and then simply run strip() to remove any leading or trailing spaces.

>>> variable = "SAMPLE NAME"
>>> trunc = variable[:7].strip()
>>> string = "'" + trunc + "'"
>>> print string
'SAMPLE'
>>> ‍‍‍‍‍‍

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

Anonymous User — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 21:07:55 GMT

This does seem to check out. I was under the impression that strip would remove all spaces, or only a specified character. The example at the link that he provided showed the removal of only the zeros from the string, and that didn't seem to be what I needed.

Thanks for clarifying.

mitchh300‌, thank you for that suggestion. I have marked your answer as correct.

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

JamesCrandall — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:34:33 GMT

You will still need to account for the possible conditions.

This will work for "SAMPLE NAME".

This will fail for "SAM PLE NAME"

variable = "SAM PLE NAME"
trunc = variable[:7].strip()
string = "'" + trunc + "'"‍‍‍

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

Anonymous User — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 21:20:17 GMT

Whenever I run the above code that you provided, I get "SAM_PLE" as a result, which is correct given that that makes up the 7 characters. If I extend that out to 8 characters to grab that extra space, the strip function removes the last space and just returns the 7 characters, which is the desired result since I only want to remove the ending space.

Do you get something different, or are we crossing wires on what the desired results are?

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

JamesCrandall — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 21:22:54 GMT

if variable = "SAM PLE NAME" then the string result will be "SAM PLE", not "SAMPLE". I was in response to what Joshua posted

>>> variable = "SAMPLE NAME"
>>> trunc = variable[:7].strip()
>>> string = "'" + trunc + "'"
>>> print string

Re: Truncate String - Remove Space

Anonymous User — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:34:37 GMT

I see what you are saying now. We were crossing wires a bit. I probably didn't explain what was needed very well. In using "SAM PLE" as my variable, I wasn't trying to indicate that I wanted them joined, I was just trying to simulate a space, and I used the original variable name that I used from the start so that probably came across confusingly. I'll use a better example below:

variable = "This is a test variable"
trunc = variable[:10].strip()
result = "'" + trunc + "'"
print result
'This is a'‍‍‍‍‍

The strip operation removed the last space in the string, but it left all other spaces, which is as desired.