Python Regular Expression

The regular expression in python used for the search pattern of a string. It used with import "re" module at the beginning of the code.

It used some metacharacters which have own separate meaning to search string, her list of metacharacters-

. ^ $ * + ? { } [ ] \ | ( )

Some useful symbol which helps to find string pattern –

\d - Matches any decimal digit; this is equivalent to the class [0-9].

\D - Matches any non-digit character; this is equivalent to the class [^0-9].

\s - Matches any whitespace character; this is equivalent to the class [ \t\n\r\f\v].

\S - Matches any non-whitespace character; this is equivalent to the class [^ \t\n\r\f\v].

\w - Matches any alphanumeric character; this is equivalent to the class [a-zA-Z0-9_].

\W - Matches any non-alphanumeric character; this is equivalent to the class [^a-zA-Z0-9_].

How to use RegEx in Python?

Python uses the in-built "re" module. It can import before starting any regular expression with python:

>>> import re

RegEx Methods In Python?

RegEx uses different types of functions to search the pattern from the given strings: Here we learn some important python function

Use of findall() in RegExp

It returns all matches patterns in the list:

Example:

import re

str = "This is codersarts tutorial"
x = re.findall("is", str)
print(x)

Output:

["is", "is"]

Use of search() in RegExp

It searches the given matches from string and returns it: It returns first matches if more then one matches in the string.

Example:

import re

str = "This is codersarts tutorial"
x = re.search("\s", str) #\s for space
print(x)

Output:

3(position of first space in string)

Use of split() in RegExp

By using this string is split at every matching.

Example:

import re

str = "This is codersarts tutorial"
x = re.split("\s", str) #\s for space search in string
print(x)

Output:

["This", "is", "codersarts", "tutorial"]

Use of sub() in RegExp

It used to replace the matches with the given value in the string.

Example:

import re

str = "This is codersarts tutorial"
x = re.sub("\s", "8", str) #\s for space search in string
print(x)

Output:

This8is8codersarts8tutorial

Read complete python regexp, then please visit python official doc -