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I have the following pandas dataframe. Say it has two columns: id and search_term:

id       search_term
37651    inline switch

I do:

train['search_term'] = train['search_term'].str.replace("in."," in. ")

expecting that the dataset above is unaffected, but I get in return for this dataset:

id       search_term
37651    in.  in.  switch

which means inl is replaced by in. and ine is replaced by in., as if I where using a regular expression, where dot means any character.

How do I rewrite the first command so that, literally, in. is replaced by in. but any in not followed by a dot is untouched, as in:

a = 'inline switch'
a = a.replace('in.','in. ')

a
>>> 'inline switch'

Answers

Try escaping the .:

import pandas as pd

df = pd.DataFrame({'search_term': ['inline switch', 'in.here']})
>>> df.search_term.str.replace('in\\.', 'in. ')
0    inline switch
1          in. here
Name: search_term, dtype: object