Star Wars Solution¶

Solution 1¶

import re

pattern = re.compile("[^\d]*")
newquotes = [pattern.search(string=x).group() for x in quotes]

print(newquotes)
# [
#     'A ', 
#     'I might as well sleep for ', 
#     'Hey Patrick, I thought of something funnier than ', 
#     'I will have you know that I stubbed my toe last week and only cried for ', 
#     'Sandy: Don’t you have to be stupid somewhere else? Patrick: Not until '
# ]

Explanation¶

Consider the string I might as well sleep for 100 years or so..

re.search(pattern="[^\d]", string=...) matches the first non digit character (from the beginning of the string).
```
I might as well sleep for 100 years or so.
```
re.search(pattern="[^\d]*", string=...) matches zero or more non digit characters (from the beginning of the string).
```
I might as well sleep for 100 years or so.
```

re.search() returns a match object (assuming a match is found).

re.search(pattern="[^\d]*", string=quote)
# <re.Match object; span=(0, 26), match='I might as well sleep for '>

Match objects have a .group() method which can be used to return the matching substring (or the ith matching capture group).

match = re.search(pattern="[^\d]*", string=quote)
match.group()
# 'I might as well sleep for '

This technique can be extended with list comprehension to fetch the matching substring from each string in quotes.

[re.search(pattern="[^\d]*", string=x).group() for x in quotes]

# [
#     'A ', 
#     'I might as well sleep for ', 
#     'Hey Patrick, I thought of something funnier than ', 
#     'I will have you know that I stubbed my toe last week and only cried for ', 
#     'Sandy: Don’t you have to be stupid somewhere else? Patrick: Not until '
# ]

Since we reuse the same regex multiple times, it'll be more efficient if we compile it!

pattern = re.compile("[^\d]*")
newquotes = [pattern.search(string=x).group() for x in quotes]

print(newquotes)
# [
#     'A ', 
#     'I might as well sleep for ', 
#     'Hey Patrick, I thought of something funnier than ', 
#     'I will have you know that I stubbed my toe last week and only cried for ', 
#     'Sandy: Don’t you have to be stupid somewhere else? Patrick: Not until '
# ]

Solution 2¶

import re

pattern = re.compile("\d.*")
newquotes = [pattern.sub(string=x, repl="") for x in quotes]

print(newquotes)
# [
#     'A ', 
#     'I might as well sleep for ', 
#     'Hey Patrick, I thought of something funnier than ', 
#     'I will have you know that I stubbed my toe last week and only cried for ', 
#     'Sandy: Don’t you have to be stupid somewhere else? Patrick: Not until '
# ]

Explanation¶

The strategy here is to identify the first digit in each string and everything after it, and replace that matching substring with the empty string "".

\d matches a digit.

A 5 letter word for happiness... MONEY.
I might as well sleep for 100 years or so.
Hey Patrick, I thought of something funnier than 24... 25!
I will have you know that I stubbed my toe last week and only cried for 20 minutes.
Sandy: Don’t you have to be stupid somewhere else? Patrick: Not until 4

\d. matches a digit followed by any character.

A 5 letter word for happiness... MONEY.
I might as well sleep for 100 years or so.
Hey Patrick, I thought of something funnier than 24... 25!
I will have you know that I stubbed my toe last week and only cried for 20 minutes.
Sandy: Don’t you have to be stupid somewhere else? Patrick: Not until 4

Important

Notice that the last quote no longer has a match!

\d.* matches a digit followed by zero or more repetitions of any character.

A 5 letter word for happiness... MONEY.
I might as well sleep for 100 years or so.
Hey Patrick, I thought of something funnier than 24... 25!
I will have you know that I stubbed my toe last week and only cried for 20 minutes.
Sandy: Don’t you have to be stupid somewhere else? Patrick: Not until 4

Replace the matches in step 3 with empty strings.

import re

pattern = re.compile("\d.*") # (1)!
newquotes = [pattern.sub(string=x, repl="") for x in quotes] # (2)!

print(newquotes)
# [
#     'A ', 
#     'I might as well sleep for ', 
#     'Hey Patrick, I thought of something funnier than ', 
#     'I will have you know that I stubbed my toe last week and only cried for ', 
#     'Sandy: Don’t you have to be stupid somewhere else? Patrick: Not until '
# ]

Compile the pattern in preparation for repeated use.
Use list comprehension combined with Pattern.sub() to replace matching groups with the empty string.

See the problem