Delete line in string python

Question

What is the most efficient way to delete a line from a string in python? I have tried

content = "first line \nsecond line\nthird line\netc.".splitlines()

i = 0
for line in iter(content):
  if len(line) < 5:
    content[i] = "" 
  i += 1

content = '\n'.join(content)

where my delete condition is just that the length of the line is smaller than 5 characters. Is there a more elegant/efficient way?

Answer 1

Here's a more concise one using a list comprehension:

'\n'.join([i if len(i) > 5 else '' for i in content.split('\n')])
#'first line \nsecond line\nthird line\n'

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Now working from your approach... note that content is already an iterator, so there's no need for iter(content).

What else can be improved? Well instead of using a counter, python has a built-in function for that, enumerate. Using it your code could look like:

content = "first line \nsecond line\nthird line\netc."
content = content.splitlines()

for i, line in enumerate(content):
      if len(line) < 5:
            content[i] = "" 

separator = '\n'
content = separator.join(content)