The following code replaces all the characters from given string with ''
Example
import re line = 'this is a text with<[2> in between</[3> and then there are instances ... where the<[43> number ranges from 0-99</[76>.\ and there are many other lines in the text files \ with<[7> such tags </[8>' line = re.sub(r"</?\[\d+>", "", line) print line
Output
This gives the output
this is a text with in between and then there are instances ... where the number ranges from 0-99.and there are many other lines in the text files with such tags