Regex matching string python

Question

I wanted to match the following string:

strings = iamcool.iplay=ball?end

I want to remove items starting (including the ".") and up till "?", so I want to remove .iplay=ball, so I should have iamcool?end

This is the regex I have:

print re.sub(r'\.\.*?','', strings)

I am not sure how to stop at the "?"

Answer 1

Use negated character class [^?] which matches anything except ?.

>>> re.sub(r'\.[^?]*', '', strings)
'strings = iamcool?end'