Removing / editing certain keywords from array content

[shamuraq]

I have this list as an array:

1. [Question - Geography Chapter2] How would you describe humans' relationship with the physical environment? (Page 42)

2. [Question - Geography Chapter4] What is a natural resource? (Page 67)

3. [Question - Geography Chapter3] What are two or three resources which you cannot do without? What are the reasons for your choices? (Page 52)

...

129. [Question - Geography Chapter6] What is the human-centered view on the use of natural resources? (Page 339)

130. [Question - Geography Chapter7] What are the benefits of using products with a smaller environmental footprint? (Page 342)

I would like to remove:

 - The square brackets and everything in it. I am hoping that the questions would start without the eg; [Question - Geography Chapter7] etc.
 - The round brackets and everything in it. I am trying to delete the references to the page number.

Is there a simple an clean way to do it? Any pointer is truly appreciated.
Thanx in advance.

[Barand]

One way is to find the positions of the "]" and and the "(" and grab the text between those points.

 $qa = [ "[Question - Geography Chapter2] How would you describe humans' relationship with the physical environment? (Page 42)",
         "[Question - Geography Chapter4] What is a natural resource? (Page 67)",
         "[Question - Geography Chapter3] What are two or three resources which you cannot do without? What are the reasons for your choices? (Page 52)" 
 ];
 
 foreach ($qa as $k => &$q)  {
     $p1 = strpos($q, ']');
     $p2 = strpos($q, '(');
     $q = trim(substr($q, $p1+1, $p2-$p1-1));
 }

 

[requinix]

I'd ask exactly how confident you are that the strings are definitely going to look the way you think. If you're 100% sure they will definitely be "[Stuff] Text (Page 123)" then great, but if not then...

[Danishhafeez]

Certainly! You can achieve this by using Python and regular expressions (regex) to clean up your list of questions. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to remove the square brackets and their contents (including "Question - ...") and the round brackets with their contents (including the page numbers):

import re

# Example array of questions
questions = [
    "[Question - Geography Chapter2] How would you describe humans' relationship with the physical environment? (Page 42)",
    "[Question - Geography Chapter4] What is a natural resource? (Page 67)",
    "[Question - Geography Chapter3] What are two or three resources which you cannot do without? What are the reasons for your choices? (Page 52)",
    "[Question - Geography Chapter6] What is the human-centered view on the use of natural resources? (Page 339)",
    "[Question - Geography Chapter7] What are the benefits of using products with a smaller environmental footprint? (Page 342)"
]

# Regex pattern to remove text within square brackets and round brackets
pattern = r"\[.*?\]|\(.*?\)"

# Function to clean each question
def clean_question(question):
    return re.sub(pattern, "", question).strip()

# Clean all questions
cleaned_questions = [clean_question(q) for q in questions]

# Print cleaned questions
for idx, question in enumerate(cleaned_questions, 1):
    print(f"{idx}. {question}")

Regex Pattern:

\[.*?\] matches everything inside square brackets, including the brackets themselves.

\(.*?\) matches everything inside round brackets, including the brackets themselves.

.*? is a non-greedy match to ensure we match the shortest sequence possible within the brackets.

Function clean_question:

Uses re.sub() to substitute the matched patterns (square and round brackets and their contents) with an empty string "".

Cleaning Process:

cleaned_questions is a list comprehension that iterates over each question in the questions list, applies the clean_question function, and stores the cleaned question in cleaned_questions.

 

1. How would you describe humans' relationship with the physical environment?
2. What is a natural resource?
3. What are two or three resources which you cannot do without? What are the reasons for your choices?
4. What is the human-centered view on the use of natural resources?
5. What are the benefits of using products with a smaller environmental footprint?

Best Rgeard

danish Hafeez | QA Assistant

ICTInnovations