Program to replace a word with asterisks in a sentence

For the given sentence as input, censor a specific word with asterisks ‘ * ‘.

Example :

Input : word = “computer”
text = “GeeksforGeeks is a computer science portal for geeks. People who love computer and computer codes can contribute their valuables/ideas on computer codes/structures on here.”
Output : GeeksforGeeks is a ******** science portal for geeks. People who love ******** and ******** codes can contribute their valuables/ideas on ******** codes/structures on here.

Recommended: Please try your approach on {IDE} first, before moving on to the solution.

The idea is to first split given sentence into different words. Then traverse the word list. For every word in the word list, check if it matches with given word. If yes, then replace the word with stars in the list. Finally merge the words of list and print.

C++

// C++ program to censor a word  
// with asterisks in a sentence  
#include<bits/stdc++.h> 
#include <boost/algorithm/string.hpp>  
using namespace std; 
  
// Function takes two parameter 
string censor(string text,  
                    string word)  
{ 
  
    // Break down sentence by ' ' spaces 
    // and store each individual word in 
    // a different list 
    vector<string> word_list;  
    boost::split(word_list, text, boost::is_any_of("\\ +")); 
  
    // A new string to store the result 
    string result = ""; 
  
    // Creating the censor which is an asterisks 
    // "*" text of the length of censor word 
    string stars = ""; 
    for (int i = 0; i < word.size(); i++) 
        stars += '*'; 
  
    // Iterating through our list 
    // of extracted words 
    int index = 0; 
    for (string i : word_list)  
    { 
          
        if (i.compare(word) == 0) 
        { 
  
            // changing the censored word to 
            // created asterisks censor 
            word_list[index] = stars; 
        } 
        index++; 
    } 
  
    // join the words 
    for (string i : word_list) 
    { 
        result += i + ' '; 
    } 
    return result; 
} 
  
// Driver code 
int main()  
{ 
    string extract = "GeeksforGeeks is a computer science "
                    "portal for geeks. I am pursuing my "
                    "major in computer science. "; 
    string cen = "computer"; 
    cout << (censor(extract, cen)); 
} 
  
// This code is contributed by Rajput-Ji 

Java

// Java program to censor a word  
// with asterisks in a sentence  
class GFG 
{ 
  
// Function takes two parameter 
static String censor(String text,  
                     String word)  
{ 
  
    // Break down sentence by ' ' spaces 
    // and store each individual word in 
    // a different list 
    String[] word_list = text.split("\\s+"); 
  
    // A new string to store the result 
    String result = ""; 
  
    // Creating the censor which is an asterisks 
    // "*" text of the length of censor word 
    String stars = ""; 
    for (int i = 0; i < word.length(); i++) 
        stars += '*'; 
  
    // Iterating through our list 
    // of extracted words 
    int index = 0; 
    for (String i : word_list)  
    { 
        if (i.compareTo(word) == 0) 
  
            // changing the censored word to 
            // created asterisks censor 
            word_list[index] = stars; 
        index++; 
    } 
  
    // join the words 
    for (String i : word_list) 
        result += i + ' '; 
  
    return result; 
} 
  
// Driver code 
public static void main(String[] args)  
{ 
    String extract = "GeeksforGeeks is a computer science "+ 
                     "portal for geeks. I am pursuing my " + 
                     "major in computer science. "; 
    String cen = "computer"; 
    System.out.println(censor(extract, cen)); 
} 
} 
  
// This code is contributed by 
// sanjeev2552 

Python3

# Python Program to censor a word 
# with asterisks in a sentence 
  
  
# Function takes two parameter 
def censor(text, word): 
  
    # Break down sentence by ' ' spaces 
    # and store each individual word in 
    # a different list 
    word_list = text.split() 
  
    # A new string to store the result 
    result = '' 
  
    # Creating the censor which is an asterisks  
    # "*" text of the length of censor word 
    stars = '*' * len(word) 
  
    # count variable to  
    # access our word_list 
    count = 0
  
    # Iterating through our list 
    # of extracted words 
    index = 0; 
    for i in word_list: 
  
        if i == word: 
              
            # changing the censored word to  
            # created asterisks censor 
            word_list[index] = stars 
        index += 1
  
    # join the words 
    result =' '.join(word_list) 
  
    return result 
  
# Driver code 
if __name__== '__main__': 
      
    extract = "GeeksforGeeks is a computer science portal for geeks.\ 
               I am pursuing my major in computer science. "                
    cen = "computer"    
    print(censor(extract, cen)) 

C#

// C# program to censor a word  
// with asterisks in a sentence  
using System; 
using System.Collections.Generic; 
      
class GFG 
{ 
  
// Function takes two parameter 
static String censor(String text,  
                     String word)  
{ 
  
    // Break down sentence by ' ' spaces 
    // and store each individual word in 
    // a different list 
    String[] word_list = text.Split(' '); 
  
    // A new string to store the result 
    String result = ""; 
  
    // Creating the censor which is an asterisks 
    // "*" text of the length of censor word 
    String stars = ""; 
    for (int i = 0; i < word.Length; i++) 
        stars += '*'; 
  
    // Iterating through our list 
    // of extracted words 
    int index = 0; 
    foreach (String i in word_list)  
    { 
        if (i.CompareTo(word) == 0) 
  
            // changing the censored word to 
            // created asterisks censor 
            word_list[index] = stars; 
        index++; 
    } 
  
    // join the words 
    foreach (String i in word_list) 
        result += i + " "; 
  
    return result; 
} 
  
// Driver code 
public static void Main(String[] args)  
{ 
    String extract = "GeeksforGeeks is a computer science "+ 
                     "portal for geeks. I am pursuing my " + 
                     "major in computer science. "; 
    String cen = "computer"; 
    Console.WriteLine(censor(extract, cen)); 
} 
} 
  
// This code is contributed by PrinciRaj1992 

PHP

<?php  
// PHP Program to censor a word 
// with asterisks in a sentence 
  
// Function takes two parameter 
function censor($text, $word) 
{ 
  
    // Break down sentence by ' ' spaces 
    // and store each individual word in 
    // a different list 
    $word_list = explode(" ", $text);  
  
    // A new string to store the result 
    $result = ''; 
  
    // Creating the censor which is an  
    // asterisks "*" text of the length  
    // of censor word 
    $stars = ""; 
    for($i = 0; $i < strlen($word); $i++) 
    $stars .= "*"; 
  
    // count variable to access  
    // our word_list 
    $count = 0; 
  
    // Iterating through our list of  
    // extracted words 
    $index = 0; 
    for($i = 0; $i < sizeof($word_list); $i++) 
    { 
        if($word_list[$i] == $word) 
              
            // changing the censored word to  
            // created asterisks censor 
            $word_list[$index] = $stars; 
        $index += 1; 
    } 
      
    // join the words 
    return implode(' ', $word_list); 
} 
  
// Driver code 
$extract = "GeeksforGeeks is a computer science ". 
           "portal for geeks.\nI am pursuing my ". 
                    "major in computer science. ";          
$cen = "computer"; 
echo censor($extract, $cen); 
  
// This code is contributed 
// by Aman ojha 
?> 

Output :

GeeksforGeeks is a ******** science portal for geeks.
I am pursuing my major in ******** science.

Attention reader! Don’t stop learning now. Get hold of all the important DSA concepts with the DSA Self Paced Course at a student-friendly price and become industry ready.

My Personal Notes

Recommended: Please try your approach on {IDE} first, before moving on to the solution.

C++

Java

Python3

C#

PHP

Recommended Posts: