Getting correct string length in Python for strings with ANSI color codes

by

The pyparsing wiki includes this helpful expression for matching on ANSI escape sequences:

ESC = Literal('\x1b')
integer = Word(nums)
escapeSeq = Combine(ESC + '[' + Optional(delimitedList(integer,';')) + 
                oneOf(list(alphas)))

Here’s how to make this into an escape-sequence-stripper:

from pyparsing import *

ESC = Literal('\x1b')
integer = Word(nums)
escapeSeq = Combine(ESC + '[' + Optional(delimitedList(integer,';')) + 
                oneOf(list(alphas)))

nonAnsiString = lambda s : Suppress(escapeSeq).transformString(s)

unColorString = nonAnsiString('\x1b[1m0.0\x1b[0m')
print unColorString, len(unColorString)

prints:

0.0 3

Leave a Comment