[Tutor] Another string-manipulation question

[Mike Hansen]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tutor-bounces at python.org 
> [mailto:tutor-bounces at python.org] On Behalf Of Alan Gilfoy
> Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 2:42 PM
> To: tutor at python.org
> Subject: [Tutor] Another string-manipulation question
> 
> Given a string, how would I?:
> 
> 1. Make sure only the first letter string_name[0], is capitalized.
> This would involve using string_name.lower() to lowercase everything  
> else, but how do I use .upper(), or some other method, to capitalize  
> only the first character?

There's a string method called capitalize, so you can use
string_name.capitalize()

In [27]: x = "rakaNishu"

In [28]: x = x.capitalize()

In [29]: x
Out[29]: 'Rakanishu'


> 
> 2. Make sure that there are no symbols (non-letter, 
> non-number) in the  
> string, and, if one is found, remove it.
> 
> Pseudocode time, as to a potential approach-
> 
> for each character in the string:
>      if character not in  
> "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ":
>          remove it


Someone may have a better idea on this one. Off the top of my head, you
can build a new string while checking each character using another
string method isalpha. You might want to check the string first before
even bothering with the loop. i.e. if not string_name.isalpha()...then
enter this loop below...

In [38]: x = "rakan345ishu"

In [39]: newx = ""

In [40]: for chr in x:
   ....:        if chr.isalpha():
   ....:                newx += chr
   ....:

In [41]: print newx
rakanishu

Mike