[Python-ideas] str.find() and friends support a lists of inputs

[Terry Reedy]

On 4/17/2014 2:52 PM, Alex Rodrigues wrote:
> It's a fairly common problem to want to .find() or .replace() or .split() any one of multiple characters.
> Currently the go to solution are:

For replace, you left out the actual solution.

 >>> telnum = '(800), 555-1234'
 >>> telnum.translate(str.maketrans('','','(- ,)'))
'8005551234'

For finding any of multiple chars, a loop that does just what you want 
is easy.

targets = '(- ,)'

for i, c in enumerate(s):
   if c in targets:
     break
else:
   <whatever you want for not found>
<at this point, c and i are the char found and its index

A medium weight split is harder. A feature of re.split, because here are 
multiple possible split strings, is that one can delete or keep the 
split substring.

-- 
Terry Jan Reedy