How can I remove punctuation from a string in Python? -

i trying remove punctuation string whenever run program nothing happens... code:

#open file (a christmas carol) inputfile = open('h:\documents\computing\gcse computing\revision\practice prog/christmascarol.txt') caroltext = inputfile.read()    #convert lowercase line in caroltext:        caroltextlower = caroltext.lower()  #remove punctuation (put space instead of hyphened word or apostrophe) import string exclude = set(string.punctuation) nopunctu = caroltextlower.join(ch ch in caroltextlower if ch not in exclude) print(nopunctu) 

when run program, nothing appears

here's repaired version of code.

import string  #open file (a christmas carol) inputfile = open(r'h:\documents\computing\gcse computing\revision\practice prog/christmascarol.txt') caroltext = inputfile.read() inputfile.close()  #convert lowercase caroltextlower = caroltext.lower()  #remove punctuation  exclude = set(string.punctuation) nopunctu = ''.join(ch ch in caroltextlower if ch not in exclude) print(nopunctu) 

the usual python convention put import statements @ top of script they're easy find.

note used raw string (indicated r before opening quote mark) file name. it's not strictly necessary here, prevents backslash sequences in windows paths being interpreted escape sequences. eg in 'h:\documents\new\test.py' \n interpreted newline character , \t interpreted tab character.

you should close file after you've finished reading (or writing) it. however, it's better use with keyword open files: ensures file gets closed if there's error. eg,

filename = r'h:\documents\computing\gcse computing\revision\practice prog/christmascarol.txt' open(filename) inputfile:     caroltext = inputfile.read()