Question

For instance, I have the following string:

Hello how are you today, [name]?

How would I go about randomly placing characters between a random choice of words but not [name]? I already I have this following piece of code but I was hoping there is a better way of going about it.

string = 'Hello how are you today, [name]?'
characters = 'qwertyuioplkjhgfdsazxcvbnm,. '
arr = string.rsplit(" ")

for i in range(0, len(arr)):
    x = arr[i]
    if x == '[name]':
        continue
    if (random.randint(0,2)==1) :
        rnd=random.randint(1,len(x)-2)
        tmp1 = random.randint(0,len(characters))
        rndCharacter = characters[tmp1:tmp1+1]
        x = x[0:rnd] + rndCharacter + x[rnd+1:]
        arr[i] = x

" ".join(arr)

> Hellio how are yoy todsy, [name]?"

Though this replaces the character with a another random character. What way would I go about having it randomly replace or place a random character after or before a character as well?

Basically I’m just trying to simulate a sort of typo generator.

Thanks

Update on my code so far:

string = 'Hey how are you doing, [name]?'
characters = 'aeiou'
arr = string.rsplit(" ")
for i in range(0, len(arr)):
    x = arr[i]
    if x == '[name]': continue
    if len(x) > 3:
        if random.random() > 0.7:
            rnd = random.randint(0,len(x)-1)
            rndCharacter = random.choice(characters)
            if random.random() > 0.7:
                x = x[0:rnd] + rndCharacter + x[rnd+1:]
            else:
                x = x[:rnd] + rndCharacter + x[rnd:]
            arr[i] = x
    else:
        if random.random() > 0.7:
            rnd = random.randint(0,len(x)-1)
            rndCharacter = random.choice(characters)
            x = x[:rnd] + rndCharacter + x[rnd:]
            arr[i] = x
print " ".join(arr)

> Hey houw are you doiang, [name]?

UPDATE:

Maybe my final update for the code, hopefully this will help someone out some point in the future

def misspeller(word):
    typos = { 'a': 'aqwedcxzs',
              'b': 'bgfv nh',
              'c': 'cdx vf',
              'd': 'desxcfr',
              'e': 'e3wsdfr4',
              'f': 'fredcvgt',
              'g': 'gtrfvbhyt',
              'h': 'hytgbnju',
              'i': 'i8ujko9',
              'j': 'juyhnmki',
              'k': 'kiujm,lo',
              'l': 'loik,.;p',
              'm': 'mkjn ,',
              'n': 'nhb mjh',
              'o': 'o9ikl;p0',
              'p': 'p0ol;[-',
              'q': 'q1asw2',
              'r': 'r4edft5',
              's': 'swazxde',
              't': 't5rfgy6',
              'u': 'u7yhji8',
              'v': 'vfc bg',
              'w': 'w2qasde3',
              'x': 'xszcd',
              'y': 'y6tghu7',
              'z': 'zaZxs',
              ' ': ' bvcnm',
              '"': '"{:?}',
              '\'': '[;/\']',
              ':': ':PL>?"{',
              '<': '<LKM >',
              '>': '>:L<?:',
              ';': ';pl,.;[',
              '[': '[-p;\']=',
              ']': '=[\'',
              '{': '{[_P:"}+',
              '}': '}=[\']=',
              '|': '|\]\'',
              '.': '.l,/;',
              ',': ',lkm.'
            }

    index = random.randint(1,len(word)-1)
    letter = list(word[:index])[-1].lower()
    try:
        if random.random() <= 0.5:
            return word[:index] + random.choice(list(typos[letter])) + word[index:]
        else:
            return word[:index-1] + random.choice(list(typos[letter])) + word[index:]
    except KeyError:
        return word

def generate(self, s, n, safe_name):
    misspelled_s = ''
    misspelled_list = []
    for item in s.split(' '):
        if n:
            if safe_name in item:
                misspelled_list.append(item)
            else:
                r = random.randint(0,1)
                if r == 1 and len(re.sub('[^A-Za-z0-9]+', '', item)) > 3:
                    misspelled_list.append(misspeller(item))
                    n -= 1
                else:
                    misspelled_list.append(item)
        else:
            misspelled_list.append(item)
    return ' '.join(misspelled_list)

Answer 1

import random

def misspeller(word):
    characters = 'qwertyuioplkjhgfdsazxcvbnm,. '
    rand_word_position = random.randint(-1,len(word))
    rand_characters_position = random.randint(0,len(characters)-1)

    if rand_word_position == -1:
        misspelled_word = characters[rand_characters_position] + word 
    elif rand_word_position == len(word):
        misspelled_word = word + characters[rand_characters_position] 
    else:
        misspelled_word = list(word)
        misspelled_word[rand_word_position] = characters[rand_characters_position]
        misspelled_word = ''.join(misspelled_word)        
    return misspelled_word

s = 'Hello how are you today, [name]?'
misspelled_s = ''
misspelled_list = []
for item in s.split(' '):
    if '[name]' in item:
        misspelled_list.append(item)
    else:
        misspelled_list.append(misspeller(item))
misspelled_s = ' '.join(misspelled_list)
print misspelled_s

Examples of what I’m getting from misspelled_s are:

'Hellk howg ars youf poday, [name]?'
'Heylo how arer y,u todab, [name]?'
'Hrllo hfw  are zyou totay, [name]?'

Edited to clean up a couple of mistakes and omissions on first copy.

Edit 2 If you don’t want every word to be affected you can modify the for loop in the following way:

for item in s.split(' '):
    n = random.randint(0,1)
    if '[name]' in item:
        misspelled_list.append(item)
    elif n == 1:
        misspelled_list.append(misspeller(item))
    else:
        misspelled_list.append(item)

You can modify the probability that a word is modified by changing how n is generated e.g. n = random.randint(0,10)