Replacing a character in a string using its unicode Python

Question

I want to replace the character ي (Unicode:\u064A) With the character ی (Unicode:\u06CC). I tried the following code:

import unicodedata as ud
normalForm = ud.normalize('NFKD','رزاﻗﻲ')
for charr in normalForm:
  if charr == 'ي':
    print('true')
    charr = charr.replace('ي','ی')
print(normalForm)

However, this code doesn't work, and it returns the same character:

رزاقي

while it should return:

رزاقی

I wanted to try replacing using their Unicode (or any other method), How can I achieve this?

normalForm = normalForm.replace(…). You need to call replace on the whole string and reassign it, not just a single character. — Mark Tolonen
– Mark Tolonen, Commented Sep 1, 2021 at 6:38
charr = charr.replace('ي','ی') doesn't impact the original string, because charr is a separate string object that exists independently of the normalForm. That said, .replace is designed to operate on entire strings already. Remember, Python doesn't have a separate type for individual characters. It just makes separate length-1 strings. — Karl Knechtel
– Karl Knechtel, Commented Sep 1, 2021 at 6:40
Even if you did have to iterate, you would want to create a new string rather than modifying the original, possibly by using a comprehension. — Karl Knechtel
– Karl Knechtel, Commented Sep 1, 2021 at 6:45

Mark Tolonen · Accepted Answer · 2021-09-01 18:57:45Z

1

Call .replace directly on the string. Python string are immutable, so you have to assign the return value to retain the change as well:

import unicodedata as ud

original = 'رزاﻗﻲ'
nfkd = ud.normalize('NFKD',original)
replaced = nfkd.replace('ي','ی')
print('orig',ascii(original),original)
print('nfkd',ascii(nfkd),nfkd)
print('repl',ascii(replaced),replaced)

Output with ASCII representation since visually they look the same:

orig '\u0631\u0632\u0627\ufed7\ufef2' رزاﻗﻲ
nfkd '\u0631\u0632\u0627\u0642\u064a' رزاقي
repl '\u0631\u0632\u0627\u0642\u06cc' رزاقی

edited Sep 1, 2021 at 18:57

answered Sep 1, 2021 at 17:59

Mark Tolonen

181k26 gold badges183 silver badges279 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Replacing a character in a string using its unicode Python

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Linked

Related