Elegant Python Function to Convert Camelcase to Snake_Case?

Elegant Python Function to Convert Camelcase to Snake_Case?

Example:

>>> convert('CamelCase')
'camel_case'
4

30 Answers

Camel case to snake case

import re

name = 'CamelCaseName'
name = re.sub(r'(?<!^)(?=[A-Z])', '_', name).lower()
print(name)  # camel_case_name

If you do this many times and the above is slow, compile the regex beforehand:

pattern = re.compile(r'(?<!^)(?=[A-Z])')
name = pattern.sub('_', name).lower()

To handle more advanced cases specially (this is not reversible anymore):

def camel_to_snake(name):
    name = re.sub('(.)([A-Z][a-z]+)', r'\1_\2', name)
    return re.sub('([a-z0-9])([A-Z])', r'\1_\2', name).lower()

print(camel_to_snake('camel2_camel2_case'))  # camel2_camel2_case
print(camel_to_snake('getHTTPResponseCode'))  # get_http_response_code
print(camel_to_snake('HTTPResponseCodeXYZ'))  # http_response_code_xyz

To add also cases with two underscores or more:

def to_snake_case(name):
    name = re.sub('(.)([A-Z][a-z]+)', r'\1_\2', name)
    name = re.sub('__([A-Z])', r'_\1', name)
    name = re.sub('([a-z0-9])([A-Z])', r'\1_\2', name)
    return name.lower()
Robert Thorne
Author

Robert Thorne

Robert Thorne covers electric vehicle innovations, autonomous driving systems, global mobility trends, and automotive engineering developments.