I want to write a function that takes 2 inputs: a string and a substring, then the function will remove that part of the substring from the string.
def remove_substring(s, substr):
"""(str, str) -> NoneType
Returns string without string substr
remove_substring_from_string("Im in cs", "cs")
Im in
"""
other_s = ''
for substr in s:
if substr in s:
continue
How do I continue on from here? Assuming my logic is sound.
Avoiding the use of Python functions.
Method 1
def remove_substring_from_string(s, substr):
'''
find start index in s of substring
remove it by skipping over it
'''
i = 0
while i < len(s) - len(substr) + 1:
# Check if substring starts at i
if s[i:i+len(substr)] == substr:
break
i += 1
else:
# break not hit, so substr not found
return s
# break hit
return s[:i] + s[i+len(substr):]
Method 2
If the range function can be used, the above can be written more compactly as follows.
def remove_substring_from_string(s, substr):
'''
find start index in s of substring
remove it by skipping over it
'''
for i in range(len(s) - len(substr) + 1):
if s[i:i+len(substr)] == substr:
break
else:
# break not hit, so substr not found
return s
return s[:i] + s[i+len(substr):]
Test
print(remove_substring_from_string("I have nothing to declare except my genuis", " except my genuis"))
# Output: I have nothing to declare'
This approach is based on the KMP algorithm:
def KMP(s):
n = len(s)
pi = [0 for _ in range(n)]
for i in range(1, n):
j = pi[i - 1]
while j > 0 and s[i] != s[j]:
j = pi[j - 1]
if s[i] == s[j]:
j += 1
pi[i] = j
return pi
# Removes all occurences of t in s
def remove_substring_from_string(s, t):
n = len(s)
m = len(t)
# Calculate the prefix function using KMP
pi = KMP(t + '\x00' + s)[m + 1:]
r = ""
i = 0
while i + m - 1 < n: # Before the remaining string is smaller than the substring
if pi[i + m - 1] == m: # If the substring is here, skip it
i += m
else: # Otherwise, add the current character and move to the next
r += s[i]
i += 1
# Add the remaining string
r += s[i:]
return r
It runs in O(|s| + |t|), but it has a few downsides:
\x00) in the input strings.remove_substring_from_string("aaa", "aa") will return "a". The only guarantee made is that t in remove_substring_from_string(s, t) is False for any two strings s and t.A C++ example and further explanation for the KMP algorithm can be found here. The remove_substring_from_string function then only checks if the entire substring is matched at each position and if so, skips over the substring.
I would do this using re.
import re
def remove_substring(s, substr):
# type: (str, str) -> str
return re.subn(substr, '', s)[0]
remove_substring('I am in cs', 'cs')
# 'I am in '
remove_substring('This also removes multiple substr that are found. Even if that substr is repeated like substrsubstrsubstr', 'substr')
# 'This also removes multiple that are found. Even if that is repeated like '
def remove_substring(s, substr):
while s != "":
if substr in s:
s = s.replace(substr, "")
else:
return s
if s == "":
return "Empty String"
The idea here is that we replace all occurrences of substr within s, by replacing the first instance of substr and then looping until we are done.
s. Yourforloop iterates over the characters froms. Sincesis always a character froms,substr in sis alwaysTrue. So it's not what you want. What you need to do first is to find the position ofsubstrins, which you can do by iterating over the possible positions where the substring might be found, take a slice of the string at that position (using the length of the substring to calculate the end of the slice), and check to see whether the slice equals the substring.remove_substring_from_string("aaa", "aa")only an"a"or an empty string? I.e., how are overlapping parts meant to be handled?