Extract string before a given substring Python

Question

Here is the sample text.

sample_text='Extract text before the last word'

Using string split method I can extract substring before 'word'

print(sample_text.split('word',1)[0])

I am extracting sample_text from a pdf document so there can be following possibilities.

sample_text='Extract text before the last w ord'
sample_text='Extract text before the last wo rd'
sample_text='Extract text before the last wor d'
sample_text='Extract text before the last wo r d'

Is there a simple way to take these possibilities into account and get the desired output?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You can use a regular expression that ignore space : In your example, with the word "word" that would be the regular expression :

"w\s*o\s*r\s*d"

Try to split each line in this way :

import re
sample_text='Extract text before the last w ord'
re_ignor_space = "w\s*o\s*r\s*d"
sample_text_splitted = re.split(re_ignor_space, sample_text)
desired_string = ''.join(sample_text_splitted[:-1])
print (desired_string)

If you do not need the last word just ignore it with slice :

desired_string = ''.join(sample_text_splitted[:-1])

Output :

Extract text before the last

• Abhishek Kulkarni: I don't need the last word. Expected output is:- 'Extract text before the last'
• jossefaz: I added another line of code to get you the 'Extract text before the last' Check it out
• Abhishek Kulkarni: Desired string still has 'w ord'
• jossefaz: Okay i change the code and it should do the trick now...check it out

Answer 2

You can split by regex pattern if you want.

import re
pattern = 'w\d?o\d?r\d?d'
print(re.split(pattern, sample_text))

Outputs:

['Extract text before the last ', '']

• Abhishek Kulkarni: It is still printing the entire sample_text.
• Bogdan Veliscu: Sorry, I had a typo in the pattern, try it now.