CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonregex
Anna
Anna

Reputation: 379

Python Regex: (\w+) not picking up up numbers with 2 digits or less

I am trying to use python's regex to recognize 3 tokens from the user which can all be composed of either letters or numbers.

Here is the code I was using:

    match = re.search(r'(\w+)(\w+)(\w+)', inputStr)
    if not match:
        print("Not valid")
    else:
        numWord1 = match.group(0)
        numword2 = match.group(1)
        numWord3 = match.group(2)

    print(num1)

where inputStr comes from raw_input(). I ran my code, and here's what I get for each input

      I typed: 1 2 3
      I got: Not valid

      I typed: 11 22 33
      I got: Not valid

      I typed: 111 222 333
      I got: 111

      I typed: 1 hello 3
      I got: hello

      I typed: hello 2 3
      I got: hello

I thought \w matched any letter, digit, or underscore, and by including the + I would get 1 or more instances of it in my group.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 7565

Answers (2)

jamylak
jamylak

Reputation: 133544

thought \w matched any letter, digit, or underscore

Yes but \w does not match spaces eg.

1 2 3

r'(\w+)(\w+)(\w+)'

Your pattern is looking for any letter digit or underscore, 3 times or more

Upvotes: 2

cxw
cxw

Reputation: 17041

\w does not match the spaces between the numbers — as you correctly pointed out, \w matches a letter, digit, or underscore, but not a space. Try:

match = re.search(r'(\w+)\s+(\w+)\s+(\w+)', inputStr)

\s+ matches one or more whitespace characters between the groups of digits.

Example as tested in Python 3:

>>> print(re.search(r'(\w+)\s+(\w+)\s+(\w+)',input('? ')).group(1))
? 1 2 3
1

Upvotes: 5

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