Python, Regular Expression help. Insert with re

Question

I want to know how to convert this string:

v10:2:34:5h101111gV5H2p1

to this:

;v10:2:34:5;h101111;gV5H2;p1;

So in words, I want to know how to insert ';' before all lowercase letters. I can just add the ';' at end with:

str = str + ';'

Answer 1

If your string is in variable x :

import re
re.sub('([a-z]|$)', r';\1', x)

Answer 2

>>> s
'v10:2:34:5h101111gV5H2p1'
>>> ''.join(';'+x if x.islower() else x for x in s)+';'
';v10:2:34:5;h101111;gV5H2;p1;'

Answer 3

a non- regex approach:

In [11]: from string import ascii_lowercase

In [12]: strs="v10:2:34:5h101111gV5H2p1"

In [13]: ''.join(';'+x if x in ascii_lowercase else x for x in strs)+';'
Out[13]: ';v10:2:34:5;h101111;gV5H2;p1;'

or:

In [16]: ''.join(';'+x if x.lower()==x and x.isalpha() else x for x in strs)+';'

out[16]: ';v10:2:34:5;h101111;gV5H2;p1;'