How to count the number of dashes between any two alphabetical characters?
Solution with regex:
import re
x = 'a--bc---d-k'
results = [
len(m) for m in
re.findall('(?<=[a-z])-*(?=[a-z])', x)
]
print(results)
print(''.join(str(r) for r in results))
output:
[2, 0, 3, 1]
2031
Solution with brute force loop logic:
x = 'a--bc---d-k'
count = 0
results = []
for c in x:
if c == '-':
count += 1
else:
results.append(count)
count = 0
results = results[1:] # cut off first length
print(results)
output:
[2, 0, 3, 1]
You can use a very simple solution like this:
import re
s = 'a--bc---d-k'
# Create a list of dash strings.
dashes = re.split('[a-z]', s)[1:-1]
# Measure the length of each dash string in the list and join as a string.
results = ''.join([str(len(i)) for i in dashes])
Output:
'2031'
If you input may also begin with a dash, you could use this:
def count_dashes(string):
all_counts = []
dash_count = 0
for char in string:
if char == "-":
dash_count += 1
else:
all_counts.append(dash_count)
dash_count = 0
return all_counts
But if your input always starts with a letter, you may not like the 0 that's always at the head of the list.
If you need the output as a string of ints, then you could add this:
def count_dashes(string):
all_counts = []
dash_count = 0
for char in string:
if char == "-":
dash_count += 1
else:
all_counts.append(dash_count)
dash_count = 0
return "".join([str(number) for number in all_counts])