CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonregex
Ludal
Ludal

Reputation: 120

Trouble understanding the output of this regex

I'm trying to create a regex to catch all hexadecimal colors in a string literal. I'm using Python 3, and that's what I have:

import re
pattern = re.compile(r"#[a-fA-F\d]{3}([a-fA-F\d]{3})?")

However, when I apply the findall regex method on #abcdef here's what I get:

>>> re.findall(pattern,"#abcdef") 
["def"]

Can someone explain me why do I have that? I actually need to get ["#abcdef"] Thank you in advance

Upvotes: 0

Views: 65

Answers (2)

Ludal
Ludal

Reputation: 120

Thanks to Andrej Kesely, I got the answer to my question, that is:

Regex will return capturing group.

To bypass this, just change the regex from:

r"#[a-fA-F\d]{3}([a-fA-F\d]{3})?"

to:

r"#[a-fA-F\d]{3}(?:[a-fA-F\d]{3})?"

Upvotes: 1

doticatto
doticatto

Reputation: 71

According to http://regex101.com: Regex Description

It looks like this regex is looking for

#(three characters a through f, A through F or a digit)(three characters a through f, A through F or a digit, which may or may not be present, and if they are they are what is returned from the match)

If you are looking to match any instance of the whole above string, I would recommend this instead:

#[a-fA-F\d]{6} enter image description here

Upvotes: 1

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