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 are starting over with the base line instead of saving the replaced result, thus you are getting the equivalent to

filename = line[2].replace('*', '_')
foldername = line[5].replace('*', '_')

Try the following

bad_characters = ["/", "\\", ":", "(", ")", "<", ">", "|", "?", "*"]
filename = line[2]
foldername = line[5]
for letter in bad_characters:
    filename = filename.replace(letter, "_")
    foldername = foldername.replace(letter, "_")