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Remove text between () and [] based on condition in Python?

I'm trying to remove the characters between the parentheses and brackets based on the length of characters inside the parentheses and brackets.

Using this:

def remove_text_inside_brackets(text, brackets="()[]"):
    count = [0] * (len(brackets) // 2) # count open/close brackets
    saved_chars = []
    for character in text:
        for i, b in enumerate(brackets):
            if character == b: # found bracket
                kind, is_close = divmod(i, 2)
                count[kind] += (-1)**is_close # `+1`: open, `-1`: close
                if count[kind] < 0: # unbalanced bracket
                    count[kind] = 0  # keep it
                else:  # found bracket to remove
                    break
        else: # character is not a [balanced] bracket
            if not any(count): # outside brackets
                saved_chars.append(character)
    return ''.join(saved_chars)

I'm able to remove the characters between the parentheses and brackets, but I cannot figure out how to remove the characters based on the length of characters inside.

I wanted to remove characters between the parentheses and brackets if the length <=4 with parentheses and brackets if they are >4 remove only parentheses and brackets. Sample Text:

text = "This is a sentence. (RMVE) (Once a day) [twice a day] [RMV]"

Output:

print(remove_text_inside_brackets(text))
This is a sentence. 

Desired Output:

This is a sentence. Once a day twice a day
over 4 years ago · Santiago Trujillo
3 answers
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0

You can use a simple regex with re.sub and a function as replacement to check the length of the match:

import re
out = re.sub('\(.*?\)|\[.*?\]',
             lambda m: '' if len(m.group())<=(4+2) else m.group()[1:-1],
             text)

Output:

'This is a sentence.  Once a day twice a day '

This give you the logic for more complex checks, in which case you might want to define a named function rather than a lambda

over 4 years ago · Santiago Trujillo Report

0

How about splitting on [ and look for ] and measure length (since each split with ] will be necessarily longer than normal split, 4 becomes 5):

def remove_text_inside_brackets(string):
    my_str = string.replace('(','[').replace(')',']')
    out = []
    for s in my_str.split('['):
        if ']' in s and len(s) > 5:
            s1 = s.rstrip().rstrip(']') + ' '
        elif ']' in s and len(s) <= 5:
            s1 = ['']
        else:
            s1 = s
        out.extend(s1)
    return ''.join(out).strip()

remove_text_inside_brackets(text)

Output:

'This is a sentence. RMVE Once a day twice a day'
over 4 years ago · Santiago Trujillo Report

0

Someone will hopefully improve on this, but as an alternative, this nested regular expression can work:

re.sub(r'\[([^)]{5,})\]', '\g<1>', 
       re.sub(r'\(([^)]{5,})\)', '\g<1>', 
              re.sub(r'\[[^\]]{,4}\]', '', 
                     re.sub(r'\([^)]{,4}\)', '', text))))

Note that extra spaces, after the period and at the end of the line.

The output of this is slightly different than your given expected output:

'This is a sentence.  Once a day twice a day '

It completely removes text and its surrounding brackets when the length is 4 or shorter, while it replaces the match with just the inner text where the length if 5 or longer.

Note that nested brackets, e.g., ((some text) more text) or [(four)] may fail.

over 4 years ago · Santiago Trujillo Report
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