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I need to transliterate a Hebrew text. So wrote a little Python script, which reads-in the Hebrew text from a text file, globally replaces the Hebrew letters with Latin ones. Now I need to do some fine tuning (replace certain things in some position but not in other, so a global replace won't do). The trouble is the following: The read-in text is a string so I cannot replace individual string elements. So, what would be the best way to do it?

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Please provide examples. I do not speak Hebrew and have no idea what exactly your problem is (but could possibly help), so please elaborate. This is potentially the wrong place to ask this question. – Job May 10 '12 at 20:15
Putting a reply to a comment in the question is pointless. Just make it a comment. – Dynamic May 10 '12 at 21:44
@Job: Providing a Hebrew example would just complicate things. And btw., I am sure this is the right place to ask. The question is actually completely independent from my specific application. The question more general is: I have a string (my text) and I want to replace certain specific 'elements' (the letters) by some other 'elements'. How can I achieve this? – Moked May 10 '12 at 22:06
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For those voting to close to migrate to Stack Overflow, please consider - there's no code so it wouldn't survive there very long. – ChrisF♦ May 10 '12 at 22:09
>>> (replace certain things in some position but not in other, so a global replace won't do) What determines exactly which elements should and should not be replaced? Is it possible that matching a regular expression against your string can do this? – Darthfett May 10 '12 at 22:11
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Convert your string into a list. Either a list of letters or (if this works in your case) a list of words. This is a basic approach but should work if your string is stored in writing order (rather than display order).

text_as_list = list(text_as_string)
replace_letters(text_as_list)  # this is the bit you're implementing
text_as_string = "".join(text_as_list)
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