Removing acronyms using regex , based on uppercase characters following parenthesis

user_12368010 0
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How to remove the following:

  • Acronyms starting with opening bracket and followed by upper case or number: e.g. '(ABC' or '(ABC)' or '(ABC-2A)' or '(ABC-1)'.

But NOT the words that are between parenthesis starting with uppercase and followed by lowercase e.g. '(Bobby)' or '(Bob went to the beach..)' --> This is the part I am struggling with.


text = ['(ABC went to the beach', 'The girl (ABC-2A) is walking', 'The dog (Bobby) is being walked', 'They are there (ABC)' ]
for string in text:
  cleaned_acronyms = re.sub(r'\([A-Z]*\)?', '', string)
  print(cleaned_acronyms)

#current output:
>> 'went to the beach' #Correct
>>'The girl -2A) is walking' #Not correct
>>'The dog obby) is being walked' #Not correct
>>'They are there' #Correct


#desired & correct output:
>> 'went to the beach'
>>'The girl is walking'
>>'The dog (Bobby) is being walked' #(Bobby) is NOT an acronym (uppercase+lowercase)
>>'They are there'
python-re uppercase python regex string
3 Answers

Using \([A-Z\-0-9]{2,}\)? in the following context:

import re

text = ['(ABC went to the beach', 'The girl (ABC-2A) is walking', 'The dog (Bobby) is being walked', 'They are there (ABC)' ]
for string in text:
  cleaned_acronyms = re.sub(r'\([A-Z\-0-9]{2,}\)?', '', string)
  print(cleaned_acronyms)

I get these results:

' went to the beach'
'The girl  is walking'
'The dog (Bobby) is being walked'
'They are there '
user_124250970

Have a try with a negative lookahead:

\((?![A-Z][a-z])[A-Z\d-]+\)?\s*

See an online demo

  • \( - A literal opening paranthesis.
  • (?![A-Z][a-z]) - Negative lookahead to assert position not followed by uppercase followed by lowercase.
  • [A-Z\d-]+ - Match 1+ uppercase alpha chars, digits or hyphens.
  • \)? - An optional literal closing paranthesis.
  • \s* - 0+ whitespace characters.

Some sample Python script:

import re
text = ['(ABC went to the beach', 'The girl (ABC-2A) is walking', 'The dog (Bobby) is being walked', 'They are there (ABC)' ]
for string in text:
  cleaned_acronyms = re.sub(r'\((?![A-Z][a-z])[A-Z\d-]+\)?\s*', '', string)
  print(cleaned_acronyms)

Prints:

went to the beach
The girl is walking
The dog (Bobby) is being walked
They are there
user_97581940

Using pattern \([A-Z0-9\-]+\)

Ex:

import re

text = ['ABC went to the beach', 'The girl (ABC-2A) is walking', 'The dog (Bobby) is being walked', 'They are there (ABC)' ]
ptrn = re.compile(r"\([A-Z0-9\-]+\)")
for i in text:
    print(ptrn.sub("", i))

Output:

ABC went to the beach
The girl  is walking
The dog (Bobby) is being walked
They are there
user_5323120
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