How to decode strings saved in utf-8 format

Question

I'm trying to decode the strings in the list below. They were all encoded in utf-8 format.

_strs=['."\n\nThe vicar\'',':--\n\nIn the', 'cathedral']

Expected output:

['.The vicar', ':--In the', 'cathedral']

My attempts

>>> for x in _str:
 x.decode('string_escape')
 print x
'."\n\nThe vicar\''
."
The vicar'
':--\n\nIn the'
:--
In the
'cathedral'
cathedral
>>> print [x.decode('string_escape') for x in _str]
['."\n\nThe vicar\'', ':--\n\nIn the', 'cathedral']

Both attempts failed. Any ideas?

Answer 1

So you want to remove some characters from your list, it can be done using a simple regex like in the following:

import re
print [re.sub(r'[."\'\n]','',x) for x in _str]

this regex removes all the (., ", ', \n) and the result will be:

['The vicar', ':--In the', 'cathedral']

hope this helps.

• Tiger1: I want to retain all the punctuation marks. Sorry I did not state that in my question or expected output. The punctuation marks are too many, I don't know of any method that decodes automatically other than selective removal of unwanted character using a reg-ex.
• Ammar: any characters you want to keep, don't put in the regex. so if you want the . to be in the output like your last edit, then make the regex = ["\'\n]
• Tiger1: you are right about that, but my dataset is too large, and the characters are numerous. If there's no standard method for decoding, then I'll have to build a punctuation list and adopt your solution. Thanks a lot bro.