Ways to Remove xa0 From a String in Python

1. Use the Unicodedata’s Normalize() Function to Remove \xa0 From a String in Python
2. Use the String’s replace() Function to Remove \xa0 From a String in Python
3. Use the BeautifulSoup Library’s get_text() Function With strip Set as True to Remove \xa0 From a String in Python

This article introduces different methods to remove \xa0 from a string in Python.

The \xa0 Unicode represents a hard space or a no-break space in a program. It is represented as   in HTML.

The Python functions that can help to remove \xa0 from a string are as follows.

• The normalize() function of unicodedata
• The string’s replace() function
• The BeautifulSoup library’s get_text() function with strip enabled as True.

Use the Unicodedata’s Normalize() Function to Remove \xa0 From a String in Python

You can use the unicodedata standard library’s normalize() function to remove \xa0 from a string.

The normalize() function is used as follows.

unicodedata.normalize("NFKD", string_to_normalize)

Here, NFKD denotes the normal form KD. It replaces all the compatibility characters with their equivalent characters.

The example program below illustrates this.

import unicodedata

str_hard_space = "17\xa0kg on 23rd\xa0June 2021"
print(str_hard_space)
xa = u"\xa0"

if xa in str_hard_space:
    print("xa0 is Found!")
else:
    print("xa0 is not Found!")


new_str = unicodedata.normalize("NFKD", str_hard_space)
print(new_str)
if xa in new_str:
    print("xa0 is Found!")
else:
    print("xa0 is not Found!")

Output:

17 kg on 23rd June 2021
xa0 is Found!
17 kg on 23rd June 2021
xa0 is not Found!

Use the String’s replace() Function to Remove \xa0 From a String in Python

You can use the string’s replace() function to remove \xa0 from a string.

The replace() function is used as follows.

str_hard_space.replace(u"\xa0", u" ")

The below example illustrates this.

str_hard_space = "16\xa0kg on 24th\xa0June 2021"
print(str_hard_space)
xa = u"\xa0"

if xa in str_hard_space:
    print("xa0 Found!")
else:
    print("xa0 not Found!")

new_str = str_hard_space.replace(u"\xa0", u" ")
print(new_str)
if xa in new_str:
    print("xa0 Found!")
else:
    print("xa0 not Found!")

Output:

16 kg on 24th June 2021
xa0 Found!
16 kg on 24th June 2021
xa0 not Found!

Use the BeautifulSoup Library’s get_text() Function With strip Set as True to Remove \xa0 From a String in Python

You can use the BeautifulSoup standard library’s get_text() function with strip enabled as True to remove \xa0 from a string.

The get_text() function is used as follows.

clean_html = BeautifulSoup(input_html, "lxml").get_text(strip=True)

The below example illustrates this.

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

html = "This is a test message, Hello This is a test message, Hello\xa0here"
print(html)

clean_text = BeautifulSoup(html, "lxml").get_text(strip=True)

print(clean_text)

Output:

Hello, This is a test message, Welcome to this website!
Hello, This is a test message, Welcome to this website!