Regular Expression with strings in Python

Question

I am trying to create an expression that will give me an output of yes for strings, 6,7,8 and an output of no for 9 & 10. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

#The regular expression is ' ^<[^<>]*>$ '
    print ( 'The regular expression used for 5 strings was "^<[^<>]*>$"' )
    string6 = '<an xml tag>'
    string7 =  '<an xml tag>, </closetag>'
    string8 = '<with attribute="77">'
    string9 = '<opentag><closetag>'
    string10 = '</closetag>'

    if re.search( r'^<[^<>]*,>$',string6 ) :
        print( "yes" )
    else:
        print("no")
    if re.search( r'^<[^<>]*,>$',string7 ) :
        print( "yes" )
    else:
        print("no")

    if re.search(r'^<[^<>]*>$',string8):
        print("yes")

    else:
        print("no")

    if re.search(r'^<[^<>]*>$',string9):
        print("yes")

    else:
        print("no")

    if re.search(r'^<[^<>]*>$',string10):
        print("yes")

    else:
        print("no")

This is the result: yes no yes no yes

I am trying to get: yes yes yes no no

Please do not parse XML/HTML with regexes: stackoverflow.com/questions/1732348/… — willeM_ Van Onsem
– willeM_ Van Onsem, Commented Oct 2, 2018 at 19:30
Try using beautifulsoup instead. You'll probably have much better luck! — Swagga Ting
– Swagga Ting, Commented Oct 2, 2018 at 19:41
So the regex itself can be anything? And so @Ruzihm suggestion will work for you? Or (digging deeper) is there a purpose beyond each of those regexes, other than "matching"? — Jongware
– Jongware, Commented Oct 2, 2018 at 20:31

Barmar · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-02 20:53:17Z

1

If you just have to match those specific strings, just use a regular expression with literal text in an alternation.

regex = r'^(?:<an xml tag>|<an xml tag>, </closetag>|<with attribute="77">)$';
for s in [string6, string7, string8, string9, string10]:
    if (re.search(regex, s)):
        print("yes")
    else:
        print("no")

It's not clear from the question what more general pattern could be used.

answered Oct 2, 2018 at 20:53

Barmar

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Jongware Over a year ago

Unless OP expands the question, we might as well boil it down to print ("yes yes yes no no") 😀

Ruzihm · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-02 20:53:33Z

1

The first 3 strings have at least one space character in them and the last 2 don't. If you use a regular expression that's just a single space character, , it will match the first three and not the last two.

string6 = '<an xml tag>'
string7 =  '<an xml tag>, </closetag>'
string8 = '<with attribute="77">'
string9 = '<opentag><closetag>'
string10 = '</closetag>'

if re.search( r' ',string6 ) :
    print( "yes" )
else:
    print("no")
if re.search( r' ',string7 ) :
    print( "yes" )
else:
    print("no")

if re.search(r' ',string8):
    print("yes")

else:
    print("no")

if re.search(r' ',string9):
    print("yes")

else:
    print("no")

if re.search(r' ',string10):
    print("yes")

else:
    print("no")

answered Oct 2, 2018 at 20:53

Ruzihm

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