Removing substring from string in Python

user_16918879 0
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I want to write a function that takes 2 inputs: a string and a substring, then the function will remove that part of the substring from the string.

def remove_substring(s, substr):
   """(str, str) -> NoneType
Returns string without string substr

remove_substring_from_string("Im in cs", "cs")
Im in
    """
    other_s = ''
for substr in s:
    if substr in s:
        continue

How do I continue on from here? Assuming my logic is sound.

python
3 Answers

Avoiding the use of Python functions.

Method 1

def remove_substring_from_string(s, substr):
    '''
    find start index in s of substring
    remove it by skipping over it
    '''
    i = 0
    while i < len(s) - len(substr) + 1:
        # Check if substring starts at i
        if s[i:i+len(substr)] == substr:
            break   
        i += 1
    else:
        # break not hit, so substr not found
        return s
    
    # break hit
    return s[:i] + s[i+len(substr):]

Method 2

If the range function can be used, the above can be written more compactly as follows.

def remove_substring_from_string(s, substr):
    '''
    find start index in s of substring
    remove it by skipping over it
    '''
    for i in range(len(s) - len(substr) + 1):
        if s[i:i+len(substr)] == substr:
            break
    else:
        # break not hit, so substr not found
        return s
    
    return s[:i] + s[i+len(substr):]

Test

print(remove_substring_from_string("I have nothing to declare except my genuis", " except my genuis"))
# Output: I have nothing to declare'
user_30660770

This approach is based on the KMP algorithm:

def KMP(s):
    n = len(s)
    pi = [0 for _ in range(n)]

    for i in range(1, n):
        j = pi[i - 1]
        while j > 0 and s[i] != s[j]:
            j = pi[j - 1]
        
        if s[i] == s[j]:
            j += 1
        
        pi[i] = j
    
    return pi

# Removes all occurences of t in s
def remove_substring_from_string(s, t):
    n = len(s)
    m = len(t)
    
    # Calculate the prefix function using KMP
    pi = KMP(t + '\x00' + s)[m + 1:]
    r = ""

    i = 0
    while i + m - 1 < n: # Before the remaining string is smaller than the substring
        if pi[i + m - 1] == m: # If the substring is here, skip it
            i += m
        else: # Otherwise, add the current character and move to the next
            r += s[i]
            i += 1
    
    # Add the remaining string
    r += s[i:]
    return r

It runs in O(|s| + |t|), but it has a few downsides:

  • The code is long and unintuitive.
  • It requires that there is no null (\x00) in the input strings.
  • Its constant factors are pretty bad for short s and t.
  • It doesn't handle overlapping strings how you might want it: remove_substring_from_string("aaa", "aa") will return "a". The only guarantee made is that t in remove_substring_from_string(s, t) is False for any two strings s and t.

A C++ example and further explanation for the KMP algorithm can be found here. The remove_substring_from_string function then only checks if the entire substring is matched at each position and if so, skips over the substring.

user_97469720

I would do this using re.

import re


def remove_substring(s, substr):
    # type: (str, str) -> str
    return re.subn(substr, '', s)[0]

remove_substring('I am in cs', 'cs')
# 'I am in '

remove_substring('This also removes multiple substr that are found. Even if that substr is repeated like substrsubstrsubstr', 'substr')
# 'This also removes multiple  that are found. Even if that  is repeated like '
user_38387500
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