Question

I’m trying to remove “()” from text file using python.

My input line looks like this:

 N1B N 1.2620(4) 0.3320(4) 0.0049(7)

I want:

N 1.2620 0.3320 0.0049

Basically do not want any number that is wrapped by parentheses, and want to discard the first column.

Answer 1

Use regular expressions with re:

>>> import re
>>> s = 'N1B N 1.2620(4) 0.3320(4) 0.0049(7)'
>>> re.sub('\(.*?\)', '', s)
'N1B N 1.2620 0.3320 0.0049'

? sign is for making you regex lazy. Without it you’ll get:

>>> re.sub('\(.*\)', '', s)
'N1B N 1.2620'

If you want to delete only digits, use \d insted of .:

>>> s = 'N1B N 1.2620(spam) 0.3320(4) 0.0049(7)'
>>> re.sub('\(\d*?\)', '', s)
'N1B N 1.2620(spam) 0.3320 0.0049'