[SOLVED] Python string formatting question

[dbbolton]

Let's say I have this string of text:



include "/home/daniel/.themes/NAME/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"


Is there a way to make python just print "NAME"? Perhaps by deleting the first 30 characters and the last 14 characters?

[kragen]

There are a number of ways you could approach this...

Firstly, you can access strings like you would lists, so if you wanted the 8th characters of a string, you can simply do this:



>>> myString = "/home/daniel/.themes/NAME/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"
>>> myString[8]
'n'


So, if you wanted the 22nd to the 26th characters only, I believe this would do it:



>>> myString = "/home/daniel/.themes/NAME/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"
>>> myString[21:25]
'NAME'


Look here for more info on what you can do with lists:
http://www.diveintopython.org/native_data_types/lists.html

The other way to approach this would to use some of the methods found on strings. There is some documentation here:

http://docs.python.org/lib/string-methods.html

But the one that strikes me as most useful to you is split, which splits the string by the string that you give it, returning a list of all the different parts, so in your case:



>>> myString = "/home/daniel/.themes/NAME/gtk-2.0/gtkrc"
>>> myString.split("/")
['', 'home', 'daniel', '.themes', 'NAME', 'gtk-2.0', 'gtkrc']
>>> myString.split("/")[4]
'NAME'


Finally, you could probably use regular expressions to solve this:

http://docs.python.org/lib/module-re.html
http://www.regular-expressions.info/

Using regular expressions you can do pretty much anything to your string, you just need to think really carefully about what it is you want to extract from your string.

I have to ask... What is it that your program is trying to do?

[dbbolton]

Thank you very much.

I'm working on a script to print my GTK theme based on the aforementioned line in my .gtkrc.mine as well as the name of my wallpaper based on .fehbg but perhaps a few other things as well. My other problem is figuring out how to get the strings from these files. I posted about it here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=820319

[pmasiar]

>>> myString.split("/")



Instead of hardcoding split on "/", use os.pathdelimiter, it will abstract away platform's delimiter (\ or /)

[kragen]

Instead of hardcoding split on "/", use os.pathdelimiter, it will abstract away platform's delimiter (\ or /)

Ooh, very handy! Thanks :)

[dbbolton]

Instead of hardcoding split on "/", use os.pathdelimiter, it will abstract away platform's delimiter (\ or /)
What do you need to import to use os.pathdelimiter and what is its syntax ? I searched for it on python.org but didn't find anything.

[geirha]

He probably meant os.path.sep

>>> import os
>>> os.path.sep
'/'

[pmasiar]

He probably meant os.path.sep

>>> import os
>>> os.path.sep
'/'


Exactly. thanks