Remove Punctuation in C, C++, Java & Python – Code with Explanation & Examples in Short and Simple

   

C Program

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <ctype.h>

int main() {
    char str[] = "Hello, World! Let's code.";
    char result[100];
    int j = 0;
    for(int i = 0; str[i] != '\0'; i++) {
        if(!ispunct(str[i])) {
            result[j++] = str[i];
        }
    }
    result[j] = '\0';
    printf("Output: %s", result);
    return 0;
}

C Output

Input: Hello, World! Let's code.
Output: Hello World Lets code

C++ Program

#include <iostream>
#include <string>
#include <cctype>
using namespace std;

int main() {
    string str = "C++ is fun; isn't it?";
    string result = "";
    for(char c : str) {
        if(!ispunct(c)) result += c;
    }
    cout << "Output: " << result;
    return 0;
}

C++ Output

Input: C++ is fun; isn't it?
Output: C is fun isnt it

JAVA Program

public class Main {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        String str = "Programming: 100% fun!!!";
        String result = "";
        for(int i=0; i<str.length(); i++) {
            if(!Character.toString(str.charAt(i)).matches("\\p{Punct}"))
                result += str.charAt(i);
        }
        System.out.println("Output: " + result);
    }
}

JAVA Output

Input: Programming: 100% fun!!!
Output: Programming 100 fun

Python Program

import string

s = "Wow!!! Python, easy-to-learn; right?"
result = "".join(ch for ch in s if ch not in string.punctuation)
print("Output:", result)

Python Output

Input: Wow!!! Python, easy-to-learn; right?
Output: Wow Python easytolearn right

In-Depth Explanation

Example

If you input the sentence:

Hello, World! Let's code.

Once you remove the punctuation, it is transformed into:

Hello World Lets code

In this, commas, apostrophes, and exclamation marks are removed but letters and space are still intact.

Real-Life Analogy

Consider punctuation as background noise during a phone call. When listening to the words, you tend to overlook background static. It is the same with programming activities such as cleaning data, where punctuation can be viewed as noise that must be removed when the objective is to process meaningful text. 

Why It Matters

Punctuation stripping is the central process of Natural Language Processing (NLP), which drives chatbots, search engines, and sentiment analysis software. For example, if a person types "Great!!!" or "Great.", they must both be interpreted as "Great". If machines do not strip punctuation, they will regard them as separate words and thus render analysis incorrect.

Learning Insight

This program instructs on string traversal, character categorization, and cleansing data. In C and C++, ispunct() under <ctype.h> is used to identify punctuation. In Java, regex (\p{Punct}) simplifies finding punctuation. In Python, the string.punctuation constant provides a pre-built list of all punctuation. Through character iteration and filtration, we construct a new string without punctuation.

Interview Relevance

This kind of question is a coder's favorite during interviews. It checks whether you know string manipulation and character-level validation, which are blocks for more complex problems such as text normalization, encryption, or parsing input. A candidate who can remove punctuation easily is generally more inclined to handle raw data, which happens often in real-world projects.

Real-World Usage

Suppose you’re developing a search engine. If someone searches for “C++”, it should return results for “C plus plus” as well. Similarly, in sentiment analysis, punctuation like exclamation marks might indicate excitement but shouldn’t affect the word itself. Removing or handling punctuation correctly ensures clean and meaningful analysis.

SEO-Optimized Closing

Learning to strip off punctuation from strings in C, C++, Java, and Python is a fundamental skill for both beginners and professional programmers. This easy-to-write program is commonly applied to real-world projects including text preprocessing, natural language processing, and search engines. Through this exercise, students solidify their knowledge of string manipulation, regular expressions, and dealing with characters in various languages, which are typical interview questions and everyday programming tasks.