import re s = 'birthday is 1991-11-19' res1 = re.sub('(\d{4})-(\d{2})-(\d{2})',r'\2/\3/\1',s) res2 = re.sub('(?P<year>\d{4})-(?P<month>\d{2})-(?P<day>\d{2})',r'\g<month>/\g<day>/\g<year>',s) print(res1) print(res2)