Question

I would like to save a file with the name that has the most valid characters remaining intact, f.e. if I get supplied the filename:

>This\ Ăwesomé_Song?©.mp3

and I want to save it under Windows 7, it won’t let me save it until I remove >, \ and ?. The characters Ă, © and é are totally fine and I would like to keep them intact (instead of f.e. just running everything through an ASCII filter).

I don’t know which characters are allowed f.e. under Unix and the like but I would like it to work platform-independently. The way I would solve this problem is by implementing a list of strings that each contain a class of characters, ranked from most vicious (f.e. ?) to most harmless (f.e. the letter a) and knocking them out string by string until I get a filename that i can save.

Language is Python, thanks!

Answer 1

>>> import re
>>> print re.sub(r'[\\/:"*?<>|]+', "", "This\ Ăwesomé_Song?©.mp3")
This Ăwesomé_Song©.mp3
>>>