CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonregexlistsubset
lokheart
lokheart

Reputation: 24665

Regular expression to filter list of strings matching a pattern

I use R a lot more and it is easier for me to do it in R:

> test <- c('bbb', 'ccc', 'axx', 'xzz', 'xaa')
> test[grepl("^x",test)]
[1] "xzz" "xaa"

But how to do it in python if test is a list?

P.S. I am learning python using google's python exercise and I prefer using regular expression.

Upvotes: 21

Views: 21327

Answers (5)

Wiktor Stribiżew
Wiktor Stribiżew

Reputation: 626794

In general, you may use

import re                                  # Add the re import declaration to use regex
test = ['bbb', 'ccc', 'axx', 'xzz', 'xaa'] # Define a test list
reg = re.compile(r'^x')                    # Compile the regex
test = list(filter(reg.search, test))      # Create iterator using filter, cast to list 
# => ['xzz', 'xaa']

Or, to inverse the results and get all items that do not match the regex:

list(filter(lambda x: not reg.search(x), test))
# >>> ['bbb', 'ccc', 'axx']

See the Python demo.

USAGE NOTE:

  • re.search finds the first regex match anywhere in a string and returns a match object, otherwise None
  • re.match looks for a match only at the string start, it does NOT require a full string match. So, re.search(r'^x', text) = re.match(r'x', text)
  • re.fullmatch only returns a match if the full string matches the pattern, so, re.fullmatch(r'x') = re.match(r'x\Z') = re.search(r'^x\Z').

If you wonder what the r'' prefix means, see Python - Should I be using string prefix r when looking for a period (full stop or .) using regex? and Python regex - r prefix.

Upvotes: 23

justadev
justadev

Reputation: 1496

An example when you want to extract more than one datapoint from each string in the list:

Input:

2021-02-08 20:43:16 [debug] : [RequestsDispatcher@_execute_request] Requesting: https://test.com&uuid=1623\n

Code:

pat = '(.* \d\d:\d\d:\d\d) .*_execute_request\] (.*?):.*uuid=(.*?)[\.\n]'
new_list = [re.findall(pat,s) for s in my_list]

Output:

[[('2021-02-08 20:43:15', 'Requesting', '1623')]]

Upvotes: 1

user6793824
user6793824

Reputation: 141

Here is some improvisation that works fine. Probably helps..

import re
l= ['bbb', 'ccc', 'axx', 'xzz', 'xaa'] #list
s= str( " ".join(l))                   #flattening list to string
re.findall('\\bx\\S*', s)               #regex to find string starting with x

['xzz', 'xaa']

Upvotes: 0

squiguy
squiguy

Reputation: 33370

You could use filter. I am assuming you want a new list with certain elements from the old one.

new_test = filter(lambda x: x.startswith('x'), test)

Or if you want to use a regular expression in the filter function you could try the following. It requires the re module to be imported.

new_test = filter(lambda s: re.match("^x", s), test)

Upvotes: 2

Abhijit
Abhijit

Reputation: 63727

You can use the following to find if any of the strings in list starts with 'x'

>>> [e for e in test if e.startswith('x')]
['xzz', 'xaa']
>>> any(e.startswith('x') for e in test)
True

Upvotes: 6

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