I am having trouble getting my program to detect non-alphabetical characters and am stuck. Earlier I tried to use the re.search
function, (ie re.search('[a-z]') . I currently do not understand this function and opted for code I can currently understand. If someone could explain the regex function and help me with my code it I would appreciate it.
Here is my code:
# Eliminates characters that are not part of the alphabet from string
def eleminate_unknown(input_string):
alpabet_list= ('a','b','c','d','e','f','g','h','i','j','k','l','m','n','o','p','q','r','s','t','u','v','w','x','y','z')
#checks if string is upper case and makes it lower case
if (input_string != input_string.lower()):
print 'Upper case letters detected. Converting string to lower case.'
input_string = input_string.lower()
print("eleminating unknown charecters from %s") %input_string
#creates visable division
print '___________________________________________________________'
for count in range(-1,(len(input_string)-1)): #need to subtract one from len of string to match index
print input_string
#looks for and eliminates characters not in lower case alphabet
if (input_string[count] not in alpabet_list == False):
print "String index %s eleminated!" %count
print "The charecter %s died a terrable death" %input_string[count]
print input_string[:count] + input_string[count+1:]
input_string = input_string[:count] + input_string[count+1:]
count = count+1
else:
count = count+1
print "Index %s is not eliminated. Character %s is recognized and lives to die another day." % (count, input_string[count])
print input_string