REGEX python find previous string

Question

I'm trying to find if the last word of the string is followed by a space or a special char, and if yes return the string without this space/special char

For example :

"do you love dogs ?" ==> return "do you love dogs"
"i love my dog " (space after dog) ==> return "i love my dog"
"do you love dogs?"  ==> return "do you love dogs"

So far I tried :

re.search(re.compile(r"^[^\,\(\[\.\!\?]*"), mystring)

It works in the last example but not in the first two (it keeps the space of the second example) and I don't know how to deal with it.

EDIT : the special chars are : '.', '!', '?', '(', '[',',' at first then every other non numeric/alphabetical except those

Answer 1

If you want to remove the space and the special char from the end of those 3 sentences, using regex, this is one way you can do it:

import re

print re.findall(r'\w+\s\w+\s\w+\s\w+', "i love my dog ")
print re.findall(r'\w+\s\w+\s\w+\s\w+', "do you love dogs ?")
print re.findall(r'\w+\s\w+\s\w+\s\w+', "do you love dogs?")

Output:

['i love my dog']
['do you love dogs']
['do you love dogs']

Answer 2

Updated: This will check for the existence of a sentence followed by special characters. It returns false if there are no special characters, and your original sentence is in capture group 1.

Updated Regex101 Example

r"(.*[\w])([^\w]+)"

Alternatively (without a second capture group):

Regex101 Example - no second capture group

r"(.*[\w])(?:[^\w]+)"

That's what you're looking for right?