Replacing words from strings except 'and' / 'or' / 'and not'

[Jerry Sievers]

Alexandre Cecchi <a.cecchi at gmail.com> writes:

> > Hi there,
> > 
> > Background of this question is:
> > I want to convert all words <word> except 'and' / 'or' / 'and not' from
> > a string into '*<word>*'.
> 
> Hello,
> 
> def do(s):
>     L = []
>     for x in s.split():
>         if x in ('or','and'):
>             L.append(x)    
>         elif x == 'not' and L and L[-1] == 'and':
>             L.append('not')
>         else:
>             L.append("'*%s*'" % x)
>     return ' '.join(L)
> 
> I think that it is more readable, maybe not faster, elegant I don't know =)
> print 'Yeahh it was my first post on the list.'
> 
> bye.

Might as well throw in a recursive approach, eh?

excludedWords = {'foo': 1, 'bar': 1}

def fixEmUp(list, result = []):
    x = list.pop(0)
    result.append('*' * int(x not in excludedWords) + x)
    if not list:
        return result
    return fixEmUp(list, result)

Takes a list of words and returns the same list with the words not in
excludedWords with the * prepended.

(Original poster's professor is going to ask for this
eventually... :-)

A very easy way might be to use REs with negative look-ahead on the
excluded words.

Peace

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