how to remove (.) from strings in matlab

about classify text document

[James Tursa]

Please give an example. Is it a single string, a cell array of strings? Removing all periods or replacing them with blanks? Etc.

[Image Analyst]

Yeah, clear as mud. Who know? Maybe he has (.) in the strings so he needs to get rid of parentheses too. Needs clarification and examples.

[hiba rashed]

this is the text I live in a city called hilla this city located in.the center of iraq it is not too large hilla contain many resturants in here road.these resturants make very good and delicious food.one of city that near by called najaf

[John BG]

have you tried

L=I{1}

L(L=='.')=[]

[Image Analyst]

Are you sure you don't want to do something like

str = 'I live in a city called hilla this city located in.the center of iraq it is not too large hilla contain many resturants in here road.these resturants make very good and delicious food.one of city that near by called najaf'
dotLocations = find(str == '.')
% Assume tos are periods - end of sentence.
% Make sure the next character is Capitalized
str(dotLocations+1) = upper(str(dotLocations+1))
% Now replace dot with dot space since sentences
% don't start immediately after a period.
str = strrep(str, '.', '. ')
% Make sure the string ends with a period.
if ~strcmp(strtrim(str(end)), '.')
  % Get rid of leading and trailing spaces and end with a period.
  str = [strtrim(str), '.']
end

Now there are some places where you have a period at places that don't make grammatical sense, like 'in.the' but unless you want to put in a grammar analyzer, it's not possible to know whether to remove that period or replace it with a space.

Same problem for where period are totall missing, like 'of iraq it is not'. Only a full grammatical analysis would know that it's supposed to be 'of iraq. It is not' and to add the period and capitalize the next sentence.

Answer 1

[Stephen23]

Use strrep, which is designed to perform the task that you want:

>> str = '.Hello.World.';
>> strrep(str,'.','')
ans = HelloWorld

[John BG]

You see dear Cobeldick, if you use strrep, such command has been design precisely to 'replace' so the amount of characters are the same and you are leaving behind spaces where there were dots.

The reading of the question clearly points at 'remove'

remove != replace

oder?

[James Tursa]

Huh? Stephen's posted code replaces the periods with an "empty" string ... i.e., it removes the periods instead of replacing them with blanks as you suggest.

>> str = '.Hello.World.';
>> str_no_period = strrep(str,'.','');
>> numel(str)
ans =
    13
>> numel(str_no_period)
ans =
    10

[Stephen23]

John BG wrote:

My code removes the characters, exactly as requested:

>> S1 = 'X.Hello.World.X';
>> S2 = strrep(S1,'.','')
S2 = XHelloWorldX
>> numel(S1)
ans =  15
>> numel(S2)
ans =  12

Nowhere in the MATLAB documentation does it state that with strrep the number of characters must remain the same. As any beginner will know, a simple test will confirm that the number of characters can in fact change:

 >> strrep(S1,'.','****')
 ans = X****Hello****World****X

[John BG]

yeah,

   strrep(str,'.',' ')

and

   strrep(str,'.','')
don't look that different from a distance.

I hereby state that strrep with void replacement field '', not ' ', would do the same as my answer

L(L=='.')=[]

[Image Analyst]

Why not?

L = 'a.b.c.d.e'
L(L=='.')=[]
whos L

L = 'a.b.c.d.e'
L = strrep(L, '.', '')  % Replace dot with null
whos L

both seem to give the same result. Am I not looking at it correctly?

[hiba rashed]

I have text but it doesn't work this is the code

I = textscan(f,'%s',100);
 strrep(I{1},'.','');

I contain this:

 I live in a city called hilla  
  this city located in.the center of iraq
  it is not too large hilla contain many resturants 
  in here road.these resturants make very good and delicious 
  food.one of city that near by called najaf.

[Stephen23]

@hiba rashed: try something like this:

 I = strrep(I{1},'.',' ')
 I(end) = '.'

Answer 2

[John BG]

do you mean this?

L='1.- Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/13/spain-plans-replace-nazi-time-zone-gmt/';

>> L(L=='.')=[]
L =
1- Telegraph http://wwwtelegraphcouk/news/2016/12/13/spain-plans-replace-nazi-time-zone-gmt/

if you find this answer useful would you please be so kind to mark my answer as Accepted Answer?

To any other reader, please if you find this answer of any help solving your question,

please click on the thumbs-up vote link,

thanks in advance

John BG

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