Insert characters into string based on re ?

[Matt]

I am attempting to reformat a string, inserting newlines before certain
phrases. For example, in formatting SQL, I want to start a new line at
each JOIN condition. Noting that strings are immutable, I thought it
best to spllit the string at the key points, then join with '\n'.

Regexps can seem the best way to identify the points in the string
('LEFT.*JOIN' to cover 'LEFT OUTER JOIN' and 'LEFT JOIN'), since I need
to identify multiple locationg in the string. However, the re.split
method returns the list without the split phrases, and re.findall does
not seem useful for this operation.

Suggestions?

[John Machin]

Re: Insert characters into string based on re ?


Matt wrote:

I am attempting to reformat a string, inserting newlines before certain
phrases. For example, in formatting SQL, I want to start a new line at
each JOIN condition. Noting that strings are immutable, I thought it
best to spllit the string at the key points, then join with '\n'.
>
Regexps can seem the best way to identify the points in the string
('LEFT.*JOIN' to cover 'LEFT OUTER JOIN' and 'LEFT JOIN'), since I need
to identify multiple locationg in the string. However, the re.split
method returns the list without the split phrases

Not without some minor effort on your part :-)
See below.

and re.findall does
not seem useful for this operation.
>
Suggestions?

Read the fine manual:
"""
split( pattern, string[, maxsplit = 0])

Split string by the occurrences of pattern. If capturing parentheses
are used in pattern, then the text of all groups in the pattern are
also returned as part of the resulting list. If maxsplit is nonzero, at
most maxsplit splits occur, and the remainder of the string is returned
as the final element of the list. (Incompatibilit y note: in the
original Python 1.5 release, maxsplit was ignored. This has been fixed
in later releases.)

>>re.split('\W+ ', 'Words, words, words.')

['Words', 'words', 'words', '']

# Now see what happens when you use capturing parentheses:

>>re.split('(\W +)', 'Words, words, words.')

['Words', ', ', 'words', ', ', 'words', '.', '']

>>re.split('\W+ ', 'Words, words, words.', 1)

['Words', 'words, words.']
"""

HTH,
John

[harvey.thomas@informa.com]

Re: Insert characters into string based on re ?


Matt wrote:

I am attempting to reformat a string, inserting newlines before certain
phrases. For example, in formatting SQL, I want to start a new line at
each JOIN condition. Noting that strings are immutable, I thought it
best to spllit the string at the key points, then join with '\n'.
>
Regexps can seem the best way to identify the points in the string
('LEFT.*JOIN' to cover 'LEFT OUTER JOIN' and 'LEFT JOIN'), since I need
to identify multiple locationg in the string. However, the re.split
method returns the list without the split phrases, and re.findall does
not seem useful for this operation.
>
Suggestions?

I think that re.sub is a more appropriate method rather than split and
join

trivial example (non SQL):

>>addnlre = re.compile('LEF T\s.*?\s*JOIN|R IGHT\s.*?\s*JOI N', re.DOTALL + re.IGNORECASE). sub
>>addnlre(lambd a x: x.group() + '\n', '... LEFT JOIN x RIGHT OUTER join y')

'... LEFT JOIN\n x RIGHT OUTER join\n y'

[Duncan Booth]

Re: Insert characters into string based on re ?

harvey.thomas@i nforma.com wrote:

>
Matt wrote:

>I am attempting to reformat a string, inserting newlines before
>certain phrases. For example, in formatting SQL, I want to start a
>new line at each JOIN condition. Noting that strings are immutable, I
>thought it best to spllit the string at the key points, then join
>with '\n'.

>
I think that re.sub is a more appropriate method rather than split and
join
>
trivial example (non SQL):
>

>>>addnlre = re.compile('LEF T\s.*?\s*JOIN|R IGHT\s.*?\s*JOI N',
>>>re.DOTALL + re.IGNORECASE). sub addnlre(lambda x: x.group() + '\n',
>>>'... LEFT JOIN x RIGHT OUTER join y')

'... LEFT JOIN\n x RIGHT OUTER join\n y'
>
>

Quite apart from the original requirement being to insert newlines before
rather than after the phrase, I wouldn't have said re.sub was appropriate.

>>addnlre(lambd a x: x.group() + '\n',

"select * from whatever where action in ['user left site', 'user joined site']")
"select * from whatever where action in ['user left site', 'user join\ned site']"

or with the newline before the pattern:

>>addnlre(lambd a x: '\n'+x.group(),

"select * from whatever where action in ['user left site', 'user joined site']")
"select * from whatever where action in ['user \nleft site', 'user joined site']"

[Frederic Rentsch]

Re: Insert characters into string based on re ?

Matt wrote:

I am attempting to reformat a string, inserting newlines before certain
phrases. For example, in formatting SQL, I want to start a new line at
each JOIN condition. Noting that strings are immutable, I thought it
best to spllit the string at the key points, then join with '\n'.
>
Regexps can seem the best way to identify the points in the string
('LEFT.*JOIN' to cover 'LEFT OUTER JOIN' and 'LEFT JOIN'), since I need
to identify multiple locationg in the string. However, the re.split
method returns the list without the split phrases, and re.findall does
not seem useful for this operation.
>
Suggestions?
>
>

Matt,

You may want to try this solution:

>>import SE

>>Formatter = SE.SE (' "~(?i)(left|inn er|right|outer) .*join~=\n=" ')

# Details explained below the dotted line

>>print Formatter ('select id, people.* from ids left outer join

people where ...\nSELECT name, job from people INNER JOIN jobs WHERE
....;\n')
select id, people.* from ids
left outer join people where ...
SELECT name, job from people
INNER JOIN jobs where ...;

You may add other substitutions as required one by one, interactively
tweaking each one until it does what it is supposed to do:

>>Formatter = SE.SE ('''

"~(?i)(left|inn er|right|outer) .*join~=\n =" # Add an indentation
"where=\n where" "WHERE=\n WHERE" # Add a newline also
before 'where'
";\n=;\n\n" # Add an extra line feed
"\n=;\n\n" # And add any missing
semicolon
# etc.
''')

>>print Formatter ('select id, people.* from ids left outer join

people where ...\nSELECT name, job from people INNER JOIN jobs WHERE
....;\n')
select id, people.* from ids
left outer join people
where ...;

SELECT name, job from people
INNER JOIN jobs
WHERE ...;

http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi?:action=display&name=SE&version=2.3

Frederic


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The anatomy of a replacement definition

>>Formatter = SE.SE (' "~(?i)(left|inn er|right|outer) .*join~=\n=" ')

target=substitu te (first '=')

>>Formatter = SE.SE (' "~(?i)(left|inn er|right|outer) .*join~=\n=" ')

= (each
following '=' stands for matched target)

>>Formatter = SE.SE (' "~(?i)(left|inn er|right|outer) .*join~=\n=" ')

~ ~ (contain
regular expression)

>>Formatter = SE.SE (' "~(?i)(left|inn er|right|outer) .*join~=\n=" ')

" "
(contain definition containing white space)

[Frederic Rentsch]

Re: Insert characters into string based on re ?

Frederic Rentsch wrote:

Matt wrote:

>I am attempting to reformat a string, inserting newlines before certain
>phrases. For example, in formatting SQL, I want to start a new line at
>each JOIN condition. Noting that strings are immutable, I thought it
>best to spllit the string at the key points, then join with '\n'.
>>
>Regexps can seem the best way to identify the points in the string
>('LEFT.*JOIN ' to cover 'LEFT OUTER JOIN' and 'LEFT JOIN'), since I need
>to identify multiple locationg in the string. However, the re.split
>method returns the list without the split phrases, and re.findall does
>not seem useful for this operation.
>>
>Suggestions?
>>
>>

>
Matt,
>
You may want to try this solution:
>

>import SE

.... snip

>
http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi?:a...SE&version=2.3

For reasons unknown, the new download for SE is on the old page:
http://cheeseshop.python.org/pypi/SE/2.2%20beta.

>
>
Frederic
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[guido.thelen@googlemail.com]

Re: Insert characters into string based on re ?

Hi,
initially I had the same idea before I started writing a SQL Formatter.
I was sure that coding a few "change" commands in a script would
reformat my SQL statements. But step by step I recognized that SQL
statements can not be formatted by regular expressions. Why not?
Because there is a risk that you change e.g. values in literals and
this is changing the result of a query!!
Example:

--Select pieces where status like "Join with master piece"

Inserting line-breaks before joins using a "change" command would
change the SQL statement into

--Select pieces where status like "\nJoin with master piece"

The new select statement is no more working in the same way as the
original one.

In the meantime, the "script" has about 80 pages of code .....

Regards
GuidoMarcel

[guido.thelen@googlemail.com]

Re: Insert characters into string based on re ?


You can test it here: http://www.sqlinform.com