Check if string is printable python

This Python 3 string contains all kinds of special characters:

s = 'abcd\x65\x66 äüöë\xf1 \u00a0\u00a1\u00a2 漢字 \a\b\r\t\n\v\\ \231\x9a \u2640\u2642\uffff'

If you try to show it in the console [or use repr], it makes a pretty good job of escaping all non-printable characters from that string:

>>> s
'abcdef äüöëñ \xa0¡¢ 漢字 \x07\x08\r\t\n\x0b\\ \x99\x9a ♀♂\uffff'

It is smart enough to recognise e.g. horizontal tab [\t] as printable, but vertical tab [\v] as not printable [shows up as \x0b rather than \v].

Every other non printable character also shows up as either \xNN or \uNNNN in the repr. Therefore, we can use that as the test:

def is_printable[s]:
    return not any[repr[ch].startswith["'\\x"] or repr[ch].startswith["'\\u"] for ch in s]

There may be some borderline characters, for example non-breaking white space [\xa0] is treated as non-printable here. Maybe it shouldn't be, but those special ones could then be hard-coded.

P.S.

You could do this to extract only printable characters from a string:

>>> ''.join[ch for ch in s if is_printable[ch]]
'abcdef äüöëñ ¡¢ 漢字 \r\t\n\\  ♀♂'

In this tutorial, you will learn about the Python String isprintable[] method with the help of examples.

The isprintable[] method returns True if all characters in the string are printable. If not, it returns False.

Example

text = 'apple'

# returns True if text is printable 
result = text.isprintable[]

print[result]

# Output: True 

isprintable[] Syntax

The syntax of the isprintable[] method is:

string.isprintable[]

Here, isprintable[] checks if string is printable or not.

Note:

• Characters that occupy printing space on the screen are known as printable characters. For example letters and symbols, digits, punctuation, whitespace

• Characters that do not occupy a space and are used for formatting is known as non-printable characters. For example line breaks, page breaks

isprintable[] Parameters

The isprintable[] method doesn't take any parameters.

isprintable[] Return Value

The isprintable[] method returns:

• True - if all characters in the string are printable
• False - if the string contains at least one non-printable character

Example 1: Python String isprintable[]

text1 = 'python programming'

# checks if text1 is printable 
result1 = text1.isprintable[]
print[result1]

text2 = 'python programming\n'

# checks if text2 is printable 
result2 = text2.isprintable[] 
print[result2]

Output

True
False

In the above example, we have used the isprintable[] method to check whether the text1 and text2 strings are printable or not.

Here,

• text1.isprintable[] - returns True because 'python programming' is printable string
• text2.isprintable[] - returns False because 'python programming\n' contains a non-printable character '\n'

That means if we print text2, it does not print '\n' character,

print[text2]
# Output: python programing

Example 2: isprintable[] with Empty String

The isprintable[] method returns True when we pass an empty string. For example,

empty_string = ' '

# returns True with an empty string 
print[empty_string.isprintable[]]

Output

True

Here, empty_string.isprintable[] returns True.

Example 3: isprintable[] with String Containing ASCII

# defining string using ASCII value 
text = chr[27] + chr[97]

# checks if text is printable 
if text.isprintable[]:
  print['Printable']
else:
  print['Not Printable']

Output

Not Printable

In the above example, we have defined the text string using ASCII. Here,

• chr[27] - is escape character i.e. backslash \
• chr[97] - is letter 'a'

The text.isprintable[] code returns False since chr[27] + chr[97] contains non printable escape character.

Hence the program executes the else part.

How do you check whether all the characters in a string is printable?

What is not printable in Python?

What is Isascii function in Python?

How do I use Isspace in Python?