CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonregex
dl2257
dl2257

Reputation: 33

Searching a file and returning a list of just function names using regex

So I have files of code that contains functions and I need to design a function that will teach through each line of the code and return a list that captures just the function names of the functions in the file. For example, the first file looks like this:

def this_is_a_function():
    return 20

def fun():
    return 'this is fun!'

Using my function, I should have a list that if printed should return this:

this_is_a_function
fun

Here is the code I have been using:

import re

def get_func_names(filename):
    """doc"""
    infile = open(filename)
    data = infile.readlines()    
    result = []
    for line in data:
        matching = re.search(r'\s*def (\w+)', line)
        if matching != None:
            result += matching.group(1)
    return result

and it does capture all the letters correctly but they are all printed separately rather than as a whole function name like this (this is a printed and sorted version of result):

_
_
_
a
c
f
f
h
i
i
i
n
n
n
o
s
s
t
t
u
u

Is there something I can change about my regex that will capture the name as a while and not each letter and/or underscore....

Upvotes: 2

Views: 252

Answers (1)

Iluvatar
Iluvatar

Reputation: 1537

a += b when applied to something iterable works like a.extend(b), which adds every element of b to a.

As strings are iterable, when using += Python is taking each element of the string and adding it to the list. Instead, use result.append(matching.group(1)).

Upvotes: 1

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