unicode - Python - Transliterate German Umlauts to Diacritic -

i have list of unicode file paths in need replace umlauts english diacritic. example, ü ue, ä ae , on. have defined dictionary of umlauts (keys) , diacritics (values). need compare each key each file path , key found, replace value. seems simple, can't work. out there have ideas? feedback appreciated!

code far:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-  import os  def getfilepaths(directory):     """     function generate file names directory tree using os.walk.     returns list of file paths.     """     file_paths = []     root, directories, files in os.walk(directory):         filename in files:             filepath = os.path.join(root, filename)             file_paths.append(filepath)     return file_paths  # dictionary of umlaut unicode representations (keys) , replacements (values) umlautdictionary = {u'Ä': 'ae',                     u'Ö': 'oe',                     u'Ü': 'ue',                     u'ä': 'ae',                     u'ö': 'oe',                     u'ü': 'ue'                     }  # file paths in root directory , subfolders filepathslist = getfilepaths(u'c:\\scripts\\replace characters\\umlauts') file in filepathslist:     key, value in umlautdictionary.iteritems():         if key in file:             file.replace(key, value) # not work -- umlauts still in file path!             print file 

the replace method returns new string, not modify original string.

so need

file = file.replace(key, value) 

instead of file.replace(key, value).

---

note use the translate method replacements @ once, instead of using for-loop:

in [20]: umap = {ord(key):unicode(val) key, val in umlautdictionary.items()}  in [21]: umap out[21]: {196: u'ae', 214: u'oe', 220: u'ue', 228: u'ae', 246: u'oe', 252: u'ue'}  in [22]: print(u'ÄÖ'.translate(umap)) aeoe 

so use

umap = {ord(key):unicode(val) key, val in umlautdictionary.items()} filename in filepathslist:     filename = filename.translate(umap)     print(filename)