CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonregexfindall
user1457123
user1457123

Reputation: 65

Parsing Text with Python RegEx re.findall

I have a long string that I need to parse in groups, but need to control it more.

import re

RAW_Data = "Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A40 & A41)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 3456 Numbers and this stuff2* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A42 & A43)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 78910 Numbers and this stuff3* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A44 & A45)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff4* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A46 & A47)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff5* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A48 & A49)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff6* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A50 & A51)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff7* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A52 & A53)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff8* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A54 & A55)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff9* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A56 & A57)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff10* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A58 & A59)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff11* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A60 & A61)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff12* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A62 & A63)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff13* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A64 & A65)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff14* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A66 & A67)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff15* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A68 & A69)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff16*"

fromnode = re.findall('(.*?)(?=\*\s)', RAW_Data)

print fromnode

del fromnode
del RAW_Data

The results are: 'Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff', '', ' ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A40 & A41)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 3456 Numbers and this stuff2' ........ and so on.

I can't seem to capture only the strings like "Name Multiple Words Testing With 3456 Numbers and this stuff" and omit all of the strings like "((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A40 & A41))". Any help would be much appreciated.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 609

Answers (1)

Wiktor Stribiżew
Wiktor Stribiżew

Reputation: 626851

You can split with

r'\*\s*\({2}.*?\){2}\s*'

The pattern (see demo) matches:

  • \* - a literal asterisk
  • \s* - zero or more whitespaces
  • \({2} - exactly 2 opening parentheses
  • .*? - zero or more characters other than a newline (NOTE: add the re.S flag if you need to match across several lines) as few as possible up to the first
  • \){2} - double closing parentheses
  • \s* - 0+ whitespace.

ALSO: The same, but unrolled (thus, a bit more efficient) regex:

\*\s*\({2}[^)]*(?:\)(?!\))[^)]*)*\){2}\s*

See IDEONE demo:

import re
p = re.compile(r'\*\s*\({2}.*?\){2}\s*')
test_str = "Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A40 & A41)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 3456 Numbers and this stuff2* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A42 & A43)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 78910 Numbers and this stuff3* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A44 & A45)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff4* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A46 & A47)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff5* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A48 & A49)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff6* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A50 & A51)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff7* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A52 & A53)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff8* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A54 & A55)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff9* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A56 & A57)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff10* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A58 & A59)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff11* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A60 & A61)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff12* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A62 & A63)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff13* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A64 & A65)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff14* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A66 & A67)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff15* ((Bla Bla Bla (Bla Bla) A68 & A69)) Name Multiple Words Testing With 1234 Numbers and this stuff16*"
print(re.split(p, test_str))

UPDATE

A regex for use with re.findall:

(?:\*\s*\(\([^)]*(?:\)(?!\))[^)]*)*\)\))?\s*([^*]*(?:\*(?!\s*\(\()[^*]*)*)\s*

See the regex demo

Horrified at the looks of it? It is just the unrolled version of a much simpler (?:\*\s*\(\(.*?\)\))?\s*(.*?(?=\*\s*(?:\(\(|$))).

See the IDEONE demo.

Upvotes: 4

Related Questions