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I am attempting to replace multiple letters within a string, I want the vowels to be replaced by the users input, and my current code replaces all the vowels with the same letters, however I want to replace the vowels with different user inputs. Below is an example of what I would like, and the code below that.

What I want

input1 = zz
input2 = xx
input3 = yolo

output = yzzlxx

What I have

input1 = zz
input2 = xx
input3 = yolo

output = yzzlzz

Here is my code.

def vwl():
    syl1 = input("Enter your first syllable: ")
    syl2 = input("Enter the second syllable: ")
    translate = input("Enter word to replace vowels in: ")

    for ch in ['a','e','i','o','u']:
        if ch in translate:
            translate=translate.replace(ch,syl1,)

    for ch in ['a','e','i','o','u']:
        if syl1 in translate:
            translate=translate.replace(ch,syl2,)

    print (translate)
share|improve this question
Ryan: Is this a homework question that you are doing? If so, please use the "homework" tag. – Mark Hildreth Sep 24 '12 at 15:30
4  
@MarkHildreth: actually, the homework tag has recently been deprecated. See here. – DSM Sep 24 '12 at 15:31
@DSM: Thanks for the note. My mistake. – Mark Hildreth Sep 24 '12 at 15:33
What determines which inputs replace which vowels? – martineau Sep 24 '12 at 16:14

2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

The method replace takes an additional argument count:

translate=translate.replace(ch,syl1,1)
break # finish the for loop for syl1

will only replace the first instance of ch and break will ensure you don't replace any subsequent vowels with syl1.

Similarly:

translate=translate.replace(ch,syl2,1)
break # finish the for loop
share|improve this answer
This doesn't help if the user inputs yoli (he'll still get yxxlxx). – mgilson Sep 24 '12 at 15:35
it's a bit weird of a requirement ... (using count on str.replace was my first intuition as well) – mgilson Sep 24 '12 at 15:38
Yes, I think that does it. (I'm glad you didn't delete your answer. I like to avoid re when possible) (+1). – mgilson Sep 24 '12 at 15:40
up vote 2 down vote

You can use regular expressions:

translate = re.sub('a|e|i|o|u',input1,translate,count=1)
translate = re.sub('a|e|i|o|u',input2,translate,count=1)

Example:

>>> input1 = 'zz'
>>> input2 = 'xx'
>>> translate = 'yolo'
>>> import re
>>> translate = re.sub('a|e|i|o|u',input1,translate,count=1)
>>> translate
'yzzlo'
>>> translate = re.sub('a|e|i|o|u',input2,translate,count=1)
>>> translate
'yzzlxx'
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