regex - Padding multiple character with space - python -

in perl, can following pad punctuation symbols spaces:

s/([،;؛¿!"\])}»›”؟%٪°±©®।॥…])/ $1 /g;`  

in python, i've tried this:

>>> p = u'،;؛¿!"\])}»›”؟%٪°±©®।॥…' >>> text = u"this, sentence weird» symbols… appearing everywhere¿" >>> in p: ...     text = text.replace(i, ' '+i+' ') ...  >>> text u'this, sentence weird \xbb  symbols \u2026  appearing everywhere \xbf ' >>> print text this, sentence weird »  symbols …  appearing everywhere ¿  

but there way use sort of placeholder symbol, e.g. $1 in perl can same in python 1 regex?

python version of $1 \1, should use regex substitution instead of simple string replace:

import re  p = ur'([،;؛¿!"\])}»›”؟%٪°±©®।॥…])' text = u"this, sentence weird» symbols… appearing everywhere¿"  print re.sub(p, ur' \1 ', text) 

outputs:

this , sentence weird »  symbols …  appearing everywhere ¿