Regular Expression

• Regular Expression
In the real world, string parsing in most programming languages is handled by
regular expression. Regular expression in a python programming language is a
method used for matching text pattern.
The “re” module which comes with every python installation provides regular
expression support.
In python, a regular expression search is typically written as:
match = re.search(pattern, string)
The re.search() method takes two arguments, a regular expression pattern
and a string and searches for that pattern within the string. If the pattern is
found within the string, search() returns a match object or None otherwise.
So in a regular expression, given a string, determine whether that string
matches a given pattern, and, optionally, collect substrings that contain
relevant information.
• Matching patterns
• Regular expressions are complicated mini-language. They rely on special
characters to match unknown strings, but let's start with literal characters,
such as letters, numbers, and the space character, which always match
themselves. Let's see a basic example:
import re
search_string = "TutorialsPoint"
pattern = "Tutorials"
match = re.match(pattern, search_string)
#If-statement after search() tests if it succeeded
if match:
print("regex matches: ", match.group())
else:
print('pattern not found')

Output-- regex matches: Tutorials

• RegEx Functions
• The re module offers a set of functions that allows us to search a string for
a match:

Functi Description
on
findall Returns a list containing all matches

search Returns a Match object if there is a match anywhere in the string

split Returns a list where the string has been split at each match

sub Replaces one or many matches with a string

• Metacharacters
• Metacharacters are characters with a special meaning:

Character Description Example

[] A set of characters "[a-m]"

\ Signals a special sequence (can also be used to escape special characters) "\d"

. Any character (except newline character) "he..o"

^ Starts with "^hello"

$ Ends with "planet$"

* Zero or more occurrences "he.*o"

+ One or more occurrences "he.+o"

? Zero or one occurrences "he.?o"

{} Exactly the specified number of occurrences "he.{2}o"

| Either or "falls|stays"

() Capture and group

import re
txt = "The rain in Spain"
#Find all lower case characters alphabetically between "a" and "m":
x = re.findall("[a-m]", txt)
print(x)

import re
txt = "That will be 59 dollars"
#Find all digit characters:
x = re.findall("\d", txt)
print(x)

import re
txt = "hello planet"
#Check if the string ends with 'planet‘
x = re.findall("planet$", txt)
if x:
print("Yes, the string ends with 'planet'")
else:
print("No match")
• Special Sequences
• A special sequence is a \ followed by one of the characters in the list
below, and has a special meaning:
Character Description Example
\A Returns a match if the specified characters are at the beginning of the string "\AThe"

\b Returns a match where the specified characters are at the beginning or at the end of a word r"\bain"
(the "r" in the beginning is making sure that the string is being treated as a "raw string") r"ain\b"

\B Returns a match where the specified characters are present, but NOT at the beginning (or at the end) of r"\Bain"
a word r"ain\B"
(the "r" in the beginning is making sure that the string is being treated as a "raw string")

\d Returns a match where the string contains digits (numbers from 0-9) "\d"

\D Returns a match where the string DOES NOT contain digits "\D"

\s Returns a match where the string contains a white space character "\s"

\S Returns a match where the string DOES NOT contain a white space character "\S"

\w Returns a match where the string contains any word characters (characters from a to Z, digits from 0-9, "\w"
and the underscore _ character)
\W Returns a match where the string DOES NOT contain any word characters "\W"

\Z Returns a match if the specified characters are at the end of the string "Spain\Z"
import re
txt = "The rain in Spain"
#Check if the string starts with "The":
x = re.findall("\AThe", txt)
print(x)
if x:
print("Yes, there is a match!")
else:
print("No match")

import re
txt = "The rain in Spain"
#Check if "ain" is present, but NOT at the beginning of a word:
x = re.findall(r"\Bain", txt)
print(x)
if x:
print("Yes, there is at least one match!")
else:
print("No match")
• Sets
• A set is a set of characters inside a pair of square brackets [] with a special
meaning:
Set Description
[arn] Returns a match where one of the specified characters (a, r, or n) are present

[a-n] Returns a match for any lower case character, alphabetically between a and n

[^arn] Returns a match for any character EXCEPT a, r, and n

[0123] Returns a match where any of the specified digits (0, 1, 2, or 3) are present

[0-9] Returns a match for any digit between 0 and 9

[0-5][0-9] Returns a match for any two-digit numbers from 00 and 59

[a-zA-Z] Returns a match for any character alphabetically between a and z, lower case OR upper case

[+] In sets, +, *, ., |, (), $,{} has no special meaning, so [+] means: return a match for any + character in
the string
import re
txt = "The rain in Spain"
#Check if the string has any characters between a and n:
x = re.findall("[a-n]", txt)
print(x)
if x:
print("Yes, there is at least one match!")
else:
print("No match")
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
import re
txt = "8 times before 11:45 AM"
#Check if the string has any digits:
x = re.findall("[0-9]", txt)
print(x)
if x:
print("Yes, there is at least one match!")
else:
print("No match")
• The findall() Function
• The findall() function returns a list containing all matches.
import re
#Return a list containing every occurrence of "ai":
txt = "The rain in Spain“
x = re.findall("ai", txt)
print(x)
• ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• The list contains the matches in the order they are found.
• If no matches are found, an empty list is returned:
import re
txt = "The rain in Spain"
#Check if "Portugal" is in the string:
x = re.findall("Portugal", txt)
print(x)
if (x):
print("Yes, there is at least one match!")
else:
print("No match")
• The search() Function
• The search() function searches the string for a match, and returns a Match
object if there is a match.
• If there is more than one match, only the first occurrence of the match will
be returned:
import re
txt = "The rain in Spain"
x = re.search("\s", txt)
print("The first white-space character is located in position:", x.start())
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If no matches are found, the value None is returned:
import re
txt = "The rain in Spain"
x = re.search("Portugal", txt)
print(x)
• The split() Function
• The split() function returns a list where the string has been split at each
match:
import re
#Split the string at every white-space character:
txt = "The rain in Spain"
x = re.split("\s", txt)
print(x)
• --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
• You can control the number of occurrences by specifying
the maxsplit parameter:
• Split the string only at the first occurrence:
import re
#Split the string at the first white-space character:
txt = "The rain in Spain"
x = re.split("\s", txt, 1)
print(x)
match word with perticular pattern
import re

Str="sat,hat,mat,pat"

allStr=re.findall("[shmp]at",Str)
# speciafically word start with s h m p and end with at

for i in allStr:
print(i) Output--- sat hat mat pat
----------------------------------------
Match Series of range of character

import re
Str="Sat, hat,mat,pat"

someStr=re.findall("[h-m]at",Str)
for i in someStr:
print(i) Output--- hat mat
----------------------------------
someStr=re.findall("[^h-m]at",Str)# everything apart from h-m
Replace a string
import re
item= 'hat,rat,mat,pat'
regex=re.compile("[r]at")
item=regex.sub("item",item) # for replacing
print(item) Output-- hat item mat pat
--------------------------------------------
Verify Phone Number
import re
# \w [a-z A-Z 0-9]
# \W [^a-z A-Z 0-9]
phn = "412-555-1212"
if re.search("\w{3}-\w{3}-\w{4}",phn)
print("It is a phone number")
-----------------------------------------------------------
if re.search("\d{3}-\d{3}-\d{4}",phn)
-----------------------------------------
Verify Name
import re
if re.search("\w{2,20}\s\w{2,20}", "Sachin Tendulkar"):
print("Name is valid")
#{first name range} \s—space {last name range}
-----------------------------------------------
verify email address
import re
email = "sk@aol.com md@.com @seo.com dc@.com"
print("Email Matches :",len(re.findall("[\w._%+-]{1,20}@[\w.-]{2,20}.[A-Za-
z]{2,3}",email)))
Output-- sk@aol.com