python how to check and replace words in string?

Question

I'm new to python and I'm trying to make a function which is able to detect if a string has the words "I", "I'm", "My", "Was", "Our", "me" replace it with "You", "You're", "Your", "Were", "Your" and "You" and also add a question mark at the end if it did not end with any punctuation. So far I have the code

if ' ' in statement and statement[-1].isalpha() is True:
       response = statement
       response = response + "?"

       return response

but I'm not sure how to make the function seach for those words and replace with their opposites. For example if the statement was "My dog said I'm happy" its response should be "Your dog said you're happy?"

thanks

marcadian · Answer 1 · 2023-03-08T22:35:15.270

8

create a dictionary mapping and iterate over it, something like this

Python 2

d = {"I": "You", "I'm": "You're".....}
for k,v in d.iteritems():
    statement = statement.replace(k, v)

Python 3

d = {"I": "You", "I'm": "You're".....}
for k,v in d.items():
    statement = statement.replace(k, v)

edited Mar 08 '23 at 22:35

answered Apr 15 '13 at 02:23

marcadian

2,608
13
20

Sorry I'm new to python but what are k,v – user2278906 Apr 15 '13 at 02:30
the `d.iteritems()` method (`dict.iteritems`) is no longer available in Python 3.x. I don't have time to find the replacement, sorry :( – SimonT Apr 15 '13 at 04:16
is there a way to have d = {"I" : "You","You" : "I"} without them cancelling each other out? – user2278906 Apr 15 '13 at 06:43
In python3, `d.iteritems()` method is now `d.items()`. – Erin Jan 26 '23 at 21:43
k and v stand for key (the original word, in this case "I"), and value (the word you want to replace the key with, in this case "You"). – Erin Jan 26 '23 at 21:45

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 15 '13 at 02:23

Check out python's replace function, which replaces in a string...

e.g.

x = "My dog said I'm happy"
x.replace("My", "Your") # "Your dog said I'm happy"

You could make a list of old being the list of words to replace and a list new being what to replace with, and then successively replace.

Note that you should replace longer words before shorter words.

For example if you replace "I" with "You" in the above, you'll get "Your dog said You'm happy". Hence you should replace "I'm" before "I".

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 11:57

1

This has been asked many, many times before. You'll want to use some variation of the replace method from Python's Standard Library.

edited May 23 '17 at 11:57

Community

1
1

answered Apr 15 '13 at 02:28

Brandon

284
2
7

python how to check and replace words in string?

3 Answers3

Python 2

Python 3