Regular Expression Quick Guide

Table

Regular Expression	Usage
^	Matches the beginning of a line
$	Matches the end of the line
.	Matches any character
\s	Matches whitespace
\S	Matches any non-whitespace character
*	Repeats a character zero or more times
*?	Repeats a character zero or more times (non-greedy)
+	Repeats a character one or more times
+?	Repeats a character one or more times (non-greedy)
[aeiou]	Matches a single character in the listed set
[^XYZ]	Matches a single character not in the listed set
[a-z0-9]	The set of characters can include a range
(	Indicates where string extraction is to start
)	Indicates where string extraction is to end

Module

1. Must import the library using import re before using it.
2. use re.search() to see if a string matches a regular expression, similar to using the find() method for strings

   hand = open('mbox-short.txt')
   for line in hand:
   if line.find('From:') >= 0:
   	print(line)
   

   import re
   hand = open('mbox-short.txt')
   for lin in hand:
   	line = line.rstrip()
   	if re.search('From:', line):
   		print(line)
   

3. use re.findall() to extract portions of a string that match your regular expression, similar to a combination of find() and slicing: var[5:10]

Examples

1. using re.search() like startswith():

   hand = open('mbox-short.txt')
   for line in hand:
   	line = line.rstrip()
   	if line.startswith('From:'):
   		print(line)
   

   we fine-tune what is matched by adding special characters to the string

   import re
   
   hand = open('mbox-short.txt')
   for line in hand:
   	line = line.restrip()
   	if re.search('^From:', line):
   		print(line)
   

2. Depending on how “clean” your data is and the purpose of your application, you may want to narrow your match down a bit.
   
   
3. To search a regular $ use ‘$’

Matching and extracting data

Practical applications

1. String parsing examples
   

Reference

1. regular-expressions