CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonregex
TwoShorts
TwoShorts

Reputation: 548

Python Regex - check to make sure something has a space, but not two

What I am trying to do is make sure that there is a space after something, as well as before the next thing, but there can also be words in-between

eg hello <word> goodbye or hello goodbye

when I try to check for this in regex hello\s+.*\s+goodbye

The problem with this code is that if there is not a word in the middle of hello and goodbye, then it will look for two spaces, and then count it as not seeing the correct thing.

Basically, I am trying to make sure that there is a space, and only one space, if there is or is not a word between hello and goodbye.

EDIT: still getting used to this strict definition of regex. the problem is also that there is the possibility of having something like helloabcdef <word> goodbye or hello <word> aksdjhsdflkhgoodbye which should show as false

Upvotes: 0

Views: 74

Answers (1)

Rohit Jain
Rohit Jain

Reputation: 213351

If you want to match only one space, then why are you using \s+ with quantifier? That will match 1 or more spaces. You should use just \s.

Now as for your issue, you can use this regex for matching those strings:

hello\s(\S+\s)?goodbye

Note the use of \S+. That makes sure that the capture group will match only when there is at least one non-whitespace character between the 2 spaces. Using . won't work, as it matches any character, and hence will match a space also. And, if you use \S* instead, then it will also match the following string: hello\s\sgoodbye. Note there are 2 spaces there.

Upvotes: 3

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