Python: Expand Spaces

Last update on May 30 2025 11:49:17 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

Replace Spaces with Underscore and Hyphen

Write a Python program to find a string such that, when three or more spaces are compacted to a '-' and one or two spaces are replaced by underscores, leads to the target.

Input: 
Python-Exercises
Output:
Python   Exercises

Input:  
Python_Exercises
Output:
Python Exercises

Input:  
-Hello,_world!__This_is-so-easy!-
Output:
Hello, world!  This is   so   easy! 

Visual Presentation:

Sample Solution:

Python Code:

# License: https://bit.ly/3oLErEI

# Function to replace hyphens with three spaces and underscores with a single space
def test(strs):
    return strs.replace("-", " " * 3).replace("_", " ")

# Test cases with different strings
strs = "Python-Exercises"
print("Original strings:", strs)
print("Depth of groups of matched nested parentheses separated by parentheses:")
print(test(strs))

strs = "Python_Exercises"
print("\nOriginal strings:", strs)
print("Depth of groups of matched nested parentheses separated by parentheses:")
print(test(strs))

strs = "-Hello,_world!__This_is-so-easy!-"
print("\nOriginal strings:", strs)
print("Depth of groups of matched nested parentheses separated by parentheses:")
print(test(strs))

Sample Output:

Original strings: Python-Exercises
Depth of groups of matched nested parentheses separated by parentheses:
Python   Exercises

Original strings: Python_Exercises
Depth of groups of matched nested parentheses separated by parentheses:
Python Exercises

Original strings: -Hello,_world!__This_is-so-easy!-
Depth of groups of matched nested parentheses separated by parentheses:
   Hello, world!  This is   so   easy!  

Flowchart:

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

• Write a Python program to replace sequences of three or more spaces with a hyphen and one or two spaces with an underscore.
• Write a Python program to use regular expressions to compact multiple spaces into a '-' if three or more, or '_' if one or two.
• Write a Python program to iterate through a string and substitute spaces according to the number of consecutive spaces detected.
• Write a Python program to implement a function that replaces long space sequences with '-' and short ones with '_' in an input string.

Go to:

• Python Puzzles Exercises Home ↩
• Python Exercises Home ↩

Previous: Compute the depth of groups of matched nested parentheses separated by parentheses.
Next: Find four positive even integers whose sum is n.

Python Code Editor :

Have another way to solve this solution? Contribute your code (and comments) through Disqus.