Get rid of just the numers inside asterics "*" using regex in Python-CodePudding

What I am trying to do is to get rid of the numbers that are between asterics and keep the other numbers around. I run my regex but it erases everything between asterics.

import re
msg = """
    1 x * Build your pizza * ($ 99MXN)
    1 x * Baitz Cinnamon 16 pieces * ($ 44.50 MXN)
    1 x * Potatoes 220 g * ($ 44.50 MXN) """
re.sub(r'\*.*\*', "", msg)

The expected result I am looking for is:

  """
     1 x * Build your pizza * ($ 99MXN)
     1 x * Baitz Cinnamon pieces * ($ 44.50 MXN)
     1 x * Potatoes g * ($ 44.50 MXN)
    """

CodePudding user response：

You can pass a lambda to re.sub for repl and filter out the digits for the substring enclosed inside asterisk:

result = re.sub('\*. \*',
                lambda x: ''.join(c for c in x.group(0) if not c.isdigit()),
                msg)

print(result)
    1 x * Build your pizza * ($ 99MXN)
    1 x * Baitz Cinnamon  pieces * ($ 44.50 MXN)
    1 x * Potatoes  g * ($ 44.50 MXN)

You can use nested re.sub if you don't want to use above method (which doesn't remove preceding/following white space characters):

result = re.sub('\*. \*',
                lambda x: re.sub('\s*\d \s*','',x.group(0)),
                msg)
print(result)
    1 x * Build your pizza * ($ 99MXN)
    1 x * Baitz Cinnamonpieces * ($ 44.50 MXN)
    1 x * Potatoesg * ($ 44.50 MXN)