There's got to be an easy way to do this

[Chris Barker]

> > > I am reading in a phone number field and would like to throw away
> everything
> > > except the digits.  Being an old C programmer, I know how I would do
> this.

> > > but with all of the data structure support native to Python, I'm sure
> there
> > > is "an obvious way" to do it (perhaps it's because I'm not Dutch:-).

I havn't see this whole thread, but did anyone suggest the translate
string method?:

>>> table = "".join([chr(x) for x in range(256)])
>>> remove = table.replace("0123456789","")
>>> "555-343:564-othergarbage987".translate(table,remove)
'555343564987'

I imagine it's a lot faster that REs. (I'm only imagining).

Note: does anyone know if there is a way to use the delete part without
the translate part?

-Chris

-- 
Christopher Barker,
Ph.D.                                                           
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