I am 2 days old to regex,
I have a small query
When I use the below regex statement
re.findall('([ad])[\-.\s+]([be])[\-.\s+]([cf])*', 'a-b-c d-e-f')
I recieve an output
[('a', 'b', 'c'), ('d', 'e', 'f')]
However the output I desire is
['a-b-c', 'd-e-f']
I've tried ?, $ and other expressions but no luck yet.
Please let me know If the expression can be molded a bit to get the desire output.
Thanks
print re.findall('((?:[ad])[\-.\s+](?:[be])[\-.\s+](?:[cf])*)', 'a-b-c d-e-f')
Capture the whole string and use non capturing groups for the rest.findall returns all the captured groups if present any.
Output : ['a-b-c', 'd-e-f']
You have capturing groups around all your letters. If you use a single capturing group, then you will get what you want. Also, you should get rid of the trailing '*' because that matches the blank string:
>>> re.findall('([ad][\-.\s+][be][\-.\s+][cf])', 'a-b-c d-e-f')
['a-b-c', 'd-e-f']
What's wrong with string.split?
string.split()
or
re.findall(r'\S+', s)
Use re.finditer. This won't match a-b.c
>>> l = []
>>> for i in re.finditer(r'\b[ad]([-.\s+])[be]\1[cf]\b', 'a-b-c d-e-f'):
l.append(i.group())
>>> l
['a-b-c', 'd-e-f']
