Python: Replace String by Index

Question

I have a field in a table that contains string values of degrees minutes seconds in the following format:

179-53-32

I want to replace all the dashes and format this to a proper format of:

179° 53' 32"

Basically replacing the dashes with the correct character (degree, minute, second) and having spaces in there. I was thinking about doing a repalce by index, but I don't think it works:

s.replace('-', '° ')[0]
s.replace('-', '\' ')[1]

Is there a way to accomplish what I want to do? maybe enumerate the string first and then replace?

Thanks, Mike

Answer 1

This would probably do it:

"%s° %s' %s\"" % s.split('-')

You may need to wrap the call to s.split in a tuple call. Otherwise I was getting an error. So it becomes this:

"%s° %s' %s\"" % tuple(s.split('-'))

Answer 2

'179-53-32'.replace('-', '°', 1).replace('-', "'", 1)+ '"'

• Winston Ewert: Shouldn't there be a double quote at the end?
• Mike: Thanks Rakesh. I tested this too. I had to add in the spaces, but this works for what I need as well!

Answer 3

You may use groups in regular expressions. They are extremely useful.

m = re.match(r"(?P<first>\d+)-(?P<sec>\d+)-(?P<third>\d+)", "179-53-32") 
"%s° %s' %s\"" % (m.group('first'), m.group('sec'), m.group('third'))