Replace multiple variable values in string using Python regex

Question

I've got a string that looks like this:

1080p [2.1GB] 720p [1.3GB] 480p [500MB]

In Python, I want to replace all the [x] with ,. I've tried this code:

import re
s1 = '1080p [2.1GB] 720p [1.3GB] 480p [500MB]'
s2 = re.sub("[(.*?)]", ", ", s1)

However, I get as this output: 1080p [2, 1GB] 720p [1, 3GB] 480p [500MB].

Instead, I would like to obtain something like 1080p, 720p, 480p.

Answer 1

You may use re.split.

>>> s1 = '1080p [2.1GB] 720p [1.3GB] 480p [500MB]'
>>> ', '.join(i for i in re.split(r'\s*\[[^\]]*\]\s*', s1) if i)
'1080p, 720p, 480p'

Answer 2

You need to escape the brackets and use raw string:

s2 = re.sub(r"\[(.*?)\]", ", ", s1)

Note that outside of character class, these symbols - .^$*+?()[{\| - should be escaped to match literally.

Here is a demo

If you do not plan to use the contents inside [...], remove the round brackets.

s2 = re.sub(r"\[.*?\]", ", ", s1)

To obtain a "cleaner" string, you may use a bit more sophisticated regex and strip():

import re
s1 = '1080p [2.1GB] 720p [1.3GB] 480p [500MB]'
s2 = re.sub(r"\s*\[.*?\]", ",", s1)
print s2.strip(' ,')

Output of another demo: 1080p, 720p, 480p