How to replace unicode characters in string with something else python?

Question

I have a string that I got from reading a HTML webpage with bullets that have a symbol like \"•\" because of the bulleted list. Note that the text is an HTML source from a w

Answer 1

import re
regex = re.compile("u'2022'",re.UNICODE)
newstring = re.sub(regex, something, yourstring, <optional flags>)

Answer 2

1. Decode the string to Unicode. Assuming it's UTF-8-encoded:

   str.decode("utf-8")
   

2. Call the replace method and be sure to pass it a Unicode string as its first argument:

   str.decode("utf-8").replace(u"\u2022", "*")
   

3. Encode back to UTF-8, if needed:

   str.decode("utf-8").replace(u"\u2022", "*").encode("utf-8")
   

(Fortunately, Python 3 puts a stop to this mess. Step 3 should really only be performed just prior to I/O. Also, mind you that calling a string str shadows the built-in type str.)

Answer 3

Encode string as unicode.

>>> special = u"\u2022"
>>> abc = u'ABC•def'
>>> abc.replace(special,'X')
u'ABCXdef'

Answer 4

Funny the answer is hidden in among the answers.

str.replace("•", "something") 

would work if you use the right semantics.

str.replace(u"\u2022","something") 

works wonders ;) , thnx to RParadox for the hint.