How to replace a string in a function with another string in Python?

Question

I want to do this:

>>> special = \'x\'
>>> random_function(\'Hello how are you\')
\'xxxxx xxx xxx xxx\'

I basically want

Answer 1

def hide(string, replace_with):
    for char in string:
        if char not in " !?.:;":  # chars you don't want to replace
            string = string.replace(char, replace_with) # replace char by char
    return string

print hide("Hello how are you", "x")
'xxxxx xxx xxx xxx'

Also check out the string and re modules.