Python string.replace() not replacing characters

Question

Some background information: We have an ancient web-based document database system where I work, almost entirely consisting of MS Office documents with the \"normal\" extens

Answer 1

You should look at the python string method translate() http://docs.python.org/library/string.html#string.translate with http://docs.python.org/library/string.html#string.maketrans

Editing this to add an example as per comment suggestion below:

import string
toreplace=''.join(["/", "\\", ":", "(", ")", "<", ">", "|", "?", "*"]) 
underscore=''.join( ['_'] * len(toreplace))
transtable = string.maketrans(toreplace,underscore)
filename = filename.translate(transtable)
foldername = foldername.translate(transtable)

Can simplify by making the toreplace something like '/\:,' etc, i just used what was given above