Python String Editing

Question

My Initial String consists of <span> and some contents in between and a </span></span , I would like to remove that piece(including span and contents inside it and /span) from my string , what should I do ?

Part of String that need to be Removed : "<span class="_5mfr"><span class="_6qdm" style='height: 16px; width: 16px; font-size: 16px; background-image: url("https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t81/1/16/")+14 variable strings+</span></span

I would like to remove that whole piece mentioned above

• rokpoto.com: what have you tried so far?
• Tim Roberts: The quick way would be s = s.replace('<span>','').replace('</span>','').
• SimpleGuy_: @TimRoberts It Didn't Worked :(,it returned the same old string
• PCM: @TimRoberts, no > in the </span
• SimpleGuy_: @PCM yeah by that most part of the span thing removed,but some part is till there like mentioned below

Answer 1

import re
txt = 'Iam a good boy <span>some blahblahblah </span</span and my name is john'
print(re.sub(r'<span>.*</span</span ', '', txt))

Prints:

Iam a good boy and my name is john

to the updated question

import re
txt = """<span class="_5mfr"><span class="_6qdm" style='height: 16px; width: 16px; font-size: 16px; background-image: url("https://static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t81/1/16/")+14 variable strings+</span></span"""
print(re.sub(r'<span [^<>]*?</span>?</span', '', txt))
# prints: <span class="_5mfr">

• Navaneeth Sen: Did this work with the string you updated in your question? I don't think the accepted answer solves for the current string.
• SimpleGuy_: Yeah,This Didn't Worked,I was using Except block with the program and I thought that problem had solved
• Navaneeth Sen: Did you try this one stackoverflow.com/a/69218568/449378 ?

Answer 2

Use BeautifulSoup:

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
soup = BeautifulSoup(string, 'html.parser')
for x in soup.findAll('span'):
 x.replace_with('')
print(soup.string)

• SimpleGuy_: It's not by me,Bro It's somebody Else
• U13-Forward: @SimpleGuy_ Ah! yeap! Hope it works for you!
• SimpleGuy_: Anyway,I've changed my question a little bit so that my aim is clear to everyone
• U13-Forward: @SimpleGuy_ Added working code, this is much more consistent
• U13-Forward: @SimpleGuy_ Great!

Answer 3

You can replace everything found by the regex as shown below:

import re
regex = r"(<span.+?>)|(<\/span>)"
test_str = "<span class=\\\"_5mfr\\\"><span class=\\\"_6qdm\\\" style='height: 16px; width: 16px; font-size: 16px; background-image: url(\\\"static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/t81/1/16/...\\\")'>© Dasamoolam Damu (Troll Malayalam)ഹൗ ക്രൂവൽ<span class=\\\"_5mfr\\\"><span class=\\\"_6qdm\\\" style='height: 16px; width: 16px; font-size: 16px; background-image: url(\\\"static.xx.fbcdn.net/images/emoji.php/v9/td7/1/16/...\\\")'></span></span></span></span>"
print(re.sub(regex, '', test_str))