How to extract several values from a string with regex in Python?

Question

I need to parse a string and extract substrings to a variable. The strings are not the same. Examples and expected results:

string 1 (no "NAME" pattern): "RB2 F 27/0/31 0/32, R8 28/31/120 2/0/2"
result 1 (save "as is"): "RB2 F 27/0/31 0/32, R8 28/31/120 2/0/2"

string 2 (comma separated "<key>:<value>" pairs): "TYPE :ABC,NAME: AB.DE,DESC:10/10/5:2,COMMENT: , ID:123"
result 2 (extracted comma separated "<key>=<value>" substrings): "TYPE=ABC","NAME=AB.DE","DESC=10/10/5:2","COMMENT=","ID=123"

string 3: "ID:123, NAME:CDE,DESC:10-10/5:2"
result 3: "ID=123","NAME:CDE","DESC=10-10/5:2"

Playing with "re.compile" and "split" but can't find a regex suitable for all the mentioned examples.

Why "NAME:CDE" not converted to "NAME=CDE"?

Alireza
– Alireza

2021-09-01 14:40:05 +00:00
Commented Sep 1, 2021 at 14:40 — Alireza
– Alireza, Commented Sep 1, 2021 at 14:40

Liju · Accepted Answer · 2021-09-01 17:32:07Z

0

You can use below regex to find key value pairs with findall(). then join them with =

([a-zA-Z ]+):(.*?)(?:,|$)

Demo here

Sample program

import re

inputs=["RB2 F 27/0/31 0/32, R8 28/31/120 2/0/2",
"TYPE :ABC,NAME: AB.DE,DESC:10/10/5:2,COMMENT: , ID:123",
"ID:123, NAME:CDE,DESC:10-10/5:2"]

output=[]
for line in inputs:
    output.append([a+'='+b for a,b in re.findall("([a-zA-Z ]+):(.*?)(?:,|$)",line)] or line)
    
print(output)

Output

[
 'RB2 F 27/0/31 0/32, R8 28/31/120 2/0/2',
 ['TYPE =ABC', 'NAME= AB.DE', 'DESC=10/10/5:2', 'COMMENT= ', ' ID=123'],
 ['ID=123', ' NAME=CDE', 'DESC=10-10/5:2']
]

answered Sep 1, 2021 at 17:32

Liju

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Comments

Muhammed Jaseem · Accepted Answer · 2021-09-01 14:40:23Z

0

You don't need regex for this if it's okay to assume that there won't be a ':' in the key.

if ':' in string:
    string = string.replace(' ', '')
    string = string.split(',')
    for (i, word) in enumerate(string):
        string[i] = word.replace(':', '=', 1)

answered Sep 1, 2021 at 14:40

Muhammed Jaseem

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