Remove quotes from String in Python

Question

I have a python Code that will recognize speech using the Google STT engine and give me back the results but I get the results in strings with "quotes". I don't want that quotes in my code as I will use it to run many commands and it doesn't work. I haven't tried anything so far as I didn't get anything to try! This is the function in the python code that will recognize speech:

def recog():
    p = subprocess.Popen(['./speech-recog.sh'], stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
                                            stderr=subprocess.PIPE)
    global out,err
    out, err = p.communicate()
    print out

This is speech-recog.sh:

#!/bin/bash

hardware="plughw:1,0"
duration="3"
lang="en"
hw_bool=0
dur_bool=0
lang_bool=0
for var in "$@"
do
    if [ "$var" == "-D" ] ; then
        hw_bool=1
    elif [ "$var" == "-d" ] ; then
        dur_bool=1
    elif [ "$var" == "-l" ] ; then
        lang_bool=1
    elif [ $hw_bool == 1 ] ; then
        hw_bool=0
        hardware="$var"
    elif [ $dur_bool == 1 ] ; then
        dur_bool=0
        duration="$var"
    elif [ $lang_bool == 1 ] ; then
        lang_bool=0
        lang="$var"
    else
        echo "Invalid option, valid options are -D for hardware and -d for duration"
    fi
done

arecord -D $hardware -f S16_LE -t wav -d $duration -r 16000 | flac - -f --best --sample-rate 16000 -o /dev/shm/out.flac 1>/dev/shm/voice.log 2>/dev/shm/voice.log; curl -X POST --data-binary @/dev/shm/out.flac --user-agent 'Mozilla/5.0' --header 'Content-Type: audio/x-flac; rate=16000;' "https://www.google.com/speech-api/v2/recognize?output=json&lang=$lang&key=key&client=Mozilla/5.0" | sed -e 's/[{}]/''/g' | awk -F":" '{print $4}' | awk -F"," '{print $1}' | tr -d '\n'

rm /dev/shm/out.flac

This was taken from Steven Hickson's Voicecommand Program made for Raspberry Pi

Maximo

do you mean additional quotes to the quotes that represent a string in Python? Include the command and output that you have, and what you specifically want. – Client

There are many duplicates for "[python] remove string quotes" – Parodic

Answer 1

Just use string methods .replace() if they occur throughout, or .strip() if they only occur at the start and/or finish:

a = '"sajdkasjdsak" "asdasdasds"' 

a = a.replace('"', '')
'sajdkasjdsak asdasdasds'

# or, if they only occur at start and end...
a = a.strip('\"')
'sajdkasjdsak" "asdasdasds'

# or, if they only occur at start...
a = a.lstrip('\"')

# or, if they only occur at end...
a = a.rstrip('\"')

Parodic

In my situation escaping the double quote didn't work so I used this instead...a = a.strip(chr(34)) – Bourque

why are you escaping the double quotes (")... using a.strip('"') is enough – Cathcart

@VivekPuurkayastha: yes you're correct, I escape the quote both for visual clarity and from general force of habit, so that if it's then pasted into some other quoted string it remains a quote character, and doesn't blow things up. – Parodic

Answer 2

You can use eval() for this purpose

>>> url = "'http address'"
>>> eval(url)
'http address'

while eval() poses risk , i think in this context it is safe.

Windup

also worked for me. Thanks @Windup I was getting string like '\\'Acknowledged\\'' by using eval i got 'Acknowledged' – Contour

literal_eval() (docs) is much safer than eval() – Setula

What is the risk of using eval, if I may ask? – Invention

@NwoyeCID Look up "python eval security"; but you can start here: realpython.com/python-eval-function/… – Pustulant

Careful! Both eval and literal_eval will do much more than just strip the quotes – they will also silently evaluate all escape sequences in the string. A valid escape will silently be converted (eval("'\xab'") gives '«'), while any invalid escape or invalid syntax (!!!) will result in an error – try eval("'\user'") or eval("'\images\raw'"). – Evoy

Answer 3

There are several ways this can be accomplished.

• You can make use of the builtin string function .replace() to replace all occurrences of quotes in a given string:

  >>> s = '"abcd" efgh'
  >>> s.replace('"', '')
  'abcd efgh'
  >>> 
  

• You can use the string function .join() and a generator expression to remove all quotes from a given string:

  >>> s = '"abcd" efgh'
  >>> ''.join(c for c in s if c not in '"')
  'abcd efgh'
  >>> 
  

• You can use a regular expression to remove all quotes from given string. This has the added advantage of letting you have control over when and where a quote should be deleted:

  >>> s = '"abcd" efgh'
  >>> import re
  >>> re.sub('"', '', s)
  'abcd efgh'
  >>> 
  

Pisciform

Answer 4

The easiest way is:

s = '"sajdkasjdsaasdasdasds"' 
import json
s = json.loads(s)

Engel

how could '"sajdkasjdsaasdasdasds"' be json object? – Bankroll

a string (including with quotes) is a valid json string – Engel

Thank you! I tested double quotation again and get it! – Bankroll

Note that JSON will interpret several escape sequences automatically. This is likely not intended when just stripping quotes, and will produce unexpected output for any string using `` such as Windows paths. – Evoy

Answer 5

This will remove the first and last quotes in your string

import ast

example = '"asdfasdfasdf"'
result = ast.literal_eval(example)

print(result)

Output:

asdfasdfasdf

Beret

Answer 6

You can replace "quote" characters with an empty string, like this:

>>> a = '"sajdkasjdsak" "asdasdasds"' 
>>> a
'"sajdkasjdsak" "asdasdasds"'
>>> a = a.replace('"', '')
>>> a
'sajdkasjdsak asdasdasds'

In your case, you can do the same for out variable.

Neoplatonism

Answer 7

To add to @Christian's comment:

Replace all single or double quotes in a string:

s = "'asdfa sdfa'"

import re
re.sub("[\"\']", "", s)

Golub

Answer 8

if string.startswith('"'):
    string = string[1:]

if string.endswith('"'):
    string = string[:-1]

Bendicty

The string methods strip(), lstrip(), rstrip() are for this. – Parodic

lstrip() removes all characters of the same type from the left. '""""hello'.lstrip('"') = 'hello'. This may not be what OP wants. – Bendicty

Also, do you not think this approach is a bit naive? What if the quotes he wants to remove are in the middle of his string? Your solution would break. – Pisciform

@Parodic I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to Harald. – Pisciform