How Can I Remove Punctuation and Spaces from a String in Python?

How to Remove Punctuation and Spaces from a String

For many applications, it's necessary to remove all punctuation, spaces, and special characters from a string. Here's how to accomplish this task in Python:

Without Regular Expressions:

This method uses a generator expression and str.isalnum().

<code class="python">string = "Special $#! characters   spaces 888323"
cleaned_string = ''.join(e for e in string if e.isalnum())
print(cleaned_string)  # 'Specialcharactersspaces888323'</code>

Using Regular Expressions:

Although not always the most efficient approach, regular expressions can also be used to remove special characters.

<code class="python">import re

string = "Special $#! characters   spaces 888323"
cleaned_string = re.sub(r'[^a-zA-Z0-9]', '', string)
print(cleaned_string)  # 'Specialcharactersspaces888323'</code>

Efficiency Note:

It's worth noting that using the non-regex method is typically more efficient, especially for large strings. Regular expressions are a powerful tool, but they can have performance overhead when processing large amounts of data.

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