#!/usr/bin/env python
 
# has
old = "AND Category 07|Spec 01|ABC 01 AND Category 07|Spec 02|XYZ 02 \
AND Category 07|Spec 03|PQR 03 "
# wants
new = "AND Category 07|Spec 01 AND Category 07|Spec 02 AND Category 07|Spec 03"
 
# assuming that 'Spec xx' and what you want to remove does not change in length
 
q = old.split('|S')
 
for x in q:
    print(x)  # test
 
print('-'*30)
 
 
new2 = ""
for x in q:
    if x.startswith('pec'):
        # skips the chars from index 6 to 12
        x = '|S' + x[:6] + x[13:]
        print(x)  # test
    new2 += x
 
print('-'*30)
 
print(new2)
 
"""
my result -->
AND Category 07
pec 01|ABC 01 AND Category 07
pec 02|XYZ 02 AND Category 07
pec 03|PQR 03
------------------------------
|Spec 01 AND Category 07
|Spec 02 AND Category 07
|Spec 03
------------------------------
AND Category 07|Spec 01 AND Category 07|Spec 02 AND Category 07|Spec 03
"""

test_input = "AND Category 07|Spec 01|ABC 01 AND Category 07|Spec 02|XYZ 02 AND Category 07|Spec 03|PQR 03 "
after_and_split = test_input.split("AND")
print after_and_split
 
new_str = ""
for str in after_and_split:
   after_line_split = str.split("|")
   ## length has to be > 1, otherwise nothing is left after removing -1
   if len(after_line_split) > 1:
      print "     after_line_split", after_line_split
      del after_line_split[-1]
      new_str += "AND" 
      new_str += "|".join(after_line_split) + " "
print new_str 
 
AND Category 07|Spec 01 AND Category 07|Spec 02 AND Category 07|Spec 03

import re
 
test_input = "AND Category 07|Spec 01|ABC 01 AND Category 07|Spec 02|XYZ 02 AND Category 07|Spec 03|PQR 03 "
test_output = re.sub('\|[A-Z]{3} [0-9]{2}', '', test_input)