MAX=1000; def replace_spaces(string): string=string.strip() i=len(string) space_count=string.count(' ') new_length = i + space_count*2 if new_length > MAX: return -1 index = new_length-1 string=list(string) for f in range(i-2, new_length-2): string.append('0') for j in range(i-1, 0, -1): if string[j] == ' ': string[index] = '0' string[index-1] = '2' string[index-2] = '%' index=index-3 else: string[index] = string[j] index -= 1 return ''.join(string)