Insert variable into text search string

[Kevin Glover]

These two lines are from a program that carries out a phrase search of Wikipedia and returns the total number of times that the specific phrase occurs. It is essential that the search contains an apostrophe:

results = w.search("\"of the cat's\"", type=ALL, start=1, count=1)
print results.total

I want to replace the word "cat" with a variable, e.g.

q = "cat"

so that I can generate the same search format for a list of different words. How do I format the search string to include the variable, please? I am using Python 2.7.

 

[MRAB]

These two lines are from a program that carries out a phrase search of Wikipedia and returns the total number of times that the specific phrase occurs. It is essential that the search contains an apostrophe:

results = w.search("\"of the cat's\"", type=ALL, start=1, count=1)
print results.total

I want to replace the word "cat" with a variable, e.g.

q = "cat"

so that I can generate the same search format for a list of different words. How do I format the search string to include the variable, please? I am using Python 2.7.

Try string concatenation:

results = w.search("\"of the " + q + "'s\"", type=ALL, start=1,
count=1)

 

[Jussi Piitulainen]

These two lines are from a program that carries out a phrase search
of Wikipedia and returns the total number of times that the specific
phrase occurs. It is essential that the search contains an
apostrophe:

results = w.search("\"of the cat's\"", type=ALL, start=1, count=1)
print results.total

I want to replace the word "cat" with a variable, e.g.

q = "cat"

so that I can generate the same search format for a list of
different words. How do I format the search string to include the
variable, please? I am using Python 2.7.

Format is the right word: look up the .format method of strings.
'"of the kangaroo\'s"'

That's with Python 2.7.3. An older mechanism uses the percent sign for
place holders and as an operator.

 

[Kevin Glover]

Thank you both so much. I had tried % but not successfully.

 

[Chris Angelico]

Thank you both so much. I had tried % but not successfully.

To do it with %, just do this:

whatever = "cat"
results = w.search("\"of the %s's\""%whatever, type=ALL, start=1, count=1)

Use either that or .format(), whichever you like - both are fully
supported, and they have different strengths.

ChrisA