With re.sub regular expression

Since Python 3.5, substitution using regular expressions re.sub became available:

import re
re.sub('\ |\?|\.|\!|\/|\;|\:', '', line)

Example

import re
line = 'Q: Do I write ;/.??? No!!!'
re.sub('\ |\?|\.|\!|\/|\;|\:', '', line)

'QDoIwriteNo'

Explanation

In regular expressions (regex), | is a logical OR and \ escapes spaces and special characters that might be actual regex commands. Whereas sub stands for substitution, in this case with the empty string ''.

Using filter, you'd just need one line

line = filter(lambda char: char not in " ?.!/;:", line)

This treats the string as an iterable and checks every character if the lambda returns True:

>>> help(filter)
Help on built-in function filter in module __builtin__:

filter(...)
    filter(function or None, sequence) -> list, tuple, or string

    Return those items of sequence for which function(item) is true.  If
    function is None, return the items that are true.  If sequence is a tuple
    or string, return the same type, else return a list.

Try this one:

def rm_char(original_str, need2rm):
    ''' Remove charecters in "need2rm" from "original_str" '''
    return original_str.translate(str.maketrans('','',need2rm))

This method works well in Python 3

Here's some possible ways to achieve this task:

def attempt1(string):
    return "".join([v for v in string if v not in ("a", "e", "i", "o", "u")])


def attempt2(string):
    for v in ("a", "e", "i", "o", "u"):
        string = string.replace(v, "")
    return string


def attempt3(string):
    import re
    for v in ("a", "e", "i", "o", "u"):
        string = re.sub(v, "", string)
    return string


def attempt4(string):
    return string.replace("a", "").replace("e", "").replace("i", "").replace("o", "").replace("u", "")


for attempt in [attempt1, attempt2, attempt3, attempt4]:
    print(attempt("murcielago"))

PS: Instead using " ?.!/;:" the examples use the vowels... and yeah, "murcielago" is the Spanish word to say bat... funny word as it contains all the vowels :)

PS2: If you're interested on performance you could measure these attempts with a simple code like:

import timeit


K = 1000000
for i in range(1,5):
    t = timeit.Timer(
        f"attempt{i}('murcielago')",
        setup=f"from __main__ import attempt{i}"
    ).repeat(1, K)
    print(f"attempt{i}",min(t))

In my box you'd get:

attempt1 2.2334518376057244
attempt2 1.8806643818474513
attempt3 7.214925774955572
attempt4 1.7271184513757465

So it seems attempt4 is the fastest one for this particular input.

Recursive split: s=string ; chars=chars to remove

def strip(s,chars):
if len(s)==1:
    return "" if s in chars else s
return strip(s[0:int(len(s)/2)],chars) +  strip(s[int(len(s)/2):len(s)],chars)

example:

print(strip("Hello!","lo"))    #He!

You could use the re module's regular expression replacement. Using the ^ expression allows you to pick exactly what you want from your string.

    import re
    text = "This is absurd!"
    text = re.sub("[^a-zA-Z]","",text) # Keeps only Alphabets
    print(text)

Output to this would be "Thisisabsurd". Only things specified after the ^ symbol will appear.

# for each file on a directory, rename filename

   file_list = os.listdir (r"D:\Dev\Python")

   for file_name in file_list:

       os.rename(file_name, re.sub(r'\d+','',file_name))

The string method replace does not modify the original string. It leaves the original alone and returns a modified copy.

What you want is something like: line = line.replace(char,'')

def replace_all(line, )for char in line:
    if char in " ?.!/;:":
        line = line.replace(char,'')
    return line

However, creating a new string each and every time that a character is removed is very inefficient. I recommend the following instead:

def replace_all(line, baddies, *):
    """
    The following is documentation on how to use the class,
    without reference to the implementation details:

    For implementation notes, please see comments begining with `#`
    in the source file.

    [*crickets chirp*]

    """

    is_bad = lambda ch, baddies=baddies: return ch in baddies
    filter_baddies = lambda ch, *, is_bad=is_bad: "" if is_bad(ch) else ch
    mahp = replace_all.map(filter_baddies, line)
    return replace_all.join('', join(mahp))

    # -------------------------------------------------
    # WHY `baddies=baddies`?!?
    #     `is_bad=is_bad`
    # -------------------------------------------------
    # Default arguments to a lambda function are evaluated
    # at the same time as when a lambda function is
    # **defined**.
    #
    # global variables of a lambda function
    # are evaluated when the lambda function is
    # **called**
    #
    # The following prints "as yellow as snow"
    #
    #     fleece_color = "white"
    #     little_lamb = lambda end: return "as " + fleece_color + end
    #
    #     # sometime later...
    #
    #     fleece_color = "yellow"
    #     print(little_lamb(" as snow"))
    # --------------------------------------------------
replace_all.map = map
replace_all.join = str.join

If you want your string to be just allowed characters by using ASCII codes, you can use this piece of code:

for char in s:
    if ord(char) < 96 or ord(char) > 123:
        s = s.replace(char, "")

It will remove all the characters beyond a....z even upper cases.