CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonregexpython-2.7
zubug55
zubug55

Reputation: 729

check if dot is followed by any other regex meta character using REGEX python

Regex to check if . in the string is followed by any of the other regex meta-characters -> ^ $ * + ? { } [ ] \ | ( )

How to do this?

I'm trying to do something like below:

foo.bar -> dot is not followed by any other meta characters, so return false

foo.*bar -> return true (because . is followed by *)

gmail.com -> return false

bar.+gmail -> return true

bar. -> return false

I'm very new to regex. Tried to do something like below:

import re
pattern = re.compile(r"([.][\^$*+?{}\[\]\|()]+)+")
print bool(pattern.match("foo.*bar"))

But it's not correct plz help.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 57

Answers (1)

Eugene Morozov
Eugene Morozov

Reputation: 15816

Your regexp is mostly correct but some characters are excessively escaped in the character class (for example, | doesn't have to be escaped when used inside the class).

You need to use search method instead of match. There's a subtle difference between search and match: https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html#re.match

In [1]: import re

In [2]: r = re.compile('\.[\^$*+?{}\[\]|()]')

In [4]: bool(r.search("foo.*bar"))
Out[4]: True

In [5]: bool(r.search("foo.bar"))
Out[5]: False

Also, it is better to start learning with Python 3 — version 2 is obsolete.

Upvotes: 1

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