[Tutor] need to clean a string

[Andreas Kostyrka]

Am Mon, 15 Dec 2008 10:18:28 -0800
schrieb johnf <jfabiani at yolo.com>:

> Hi,
> I have a string that I need to extract just the sql
> statement. The following is the string
> \000\000\000
\000\000\000\000
\000.
\000\000\000
\0000\000\000\000

> \000$\000\000\000\000
\000(
\000\000\000
\000X\000\000\000\000
\000,

> \000\000\000
\000P\000\000\000\000
\000Q\000\000\000\000
\000R\000
> \000\000\000
\000/\000\000\000�\000\000\000
\000%����\000\000\000

> \000'����\000\000\000
\000+brttyp\000�\000\000\000
\000*SELECT 
> Brttyp.ctrscode, Brttyp.cdescript, Brttyp.ctrstype, Brttyp.cstatus, 
> Brttyp.lreqno, Brttyp.dcreate FROM  brttyp Brttyp WHERE
> Brttyp.ctrscode = ( ?gcKey1 )\000\000\000\000
\000
> AMCONNECT\000\000\000\000
\000) \000\000\000
\000
\000\000\000

> \000\000\000
\000BR Transaction Code File\000
> 
> How can I get rid of all the junk?
>  
> I can find the '*' with str.find('*') but I can't use find '\000' to
> get to the end?

str.find has an optional second parameter specifying the start where to
search:

Given the above string as str, you can do:

start_pos = str.find('*')
sql = None
if start_pos != -1:
    end_pos = str.find('\0', start_pos)
    if end_pos == -1:
        end_pos = len(str)
    sql = str[start_pos:end_pos]

Andreas