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remove all characters aside from the decimal numbers immediately followed by the £ sign

I have text with values like:
this is a value £28.99 (0.28/ml)
I want to remove everything to return the price only so it returns:
£28.99
there could be any number of digits between the £ and .
I think
r"£[0-9]*\.[0-9]{2}"
matches the pattern I want to keep but i'm unsure on how to remove everything else and keep the pattern instead of replacing the pattern like in usual re.sub() cases.

I want to remove everything to return the price only so it returns:
Why not trying to extract the proper information instead?
import re
s = "this is a value £28.99 (0.28/ml)"
m = re.search("£\d*(\.\d+)?",s)
if m:
print(m.group(0))
to find several occurrences use findall or finditer instead of search

You don't care how many digits are before the decimal, so using the zero-or-more matcher was correct. However, you could just rely on the digit class (\d) to provide that more succinctly.
The same is true of after the decimal. You only need two so your limiting the matches to 2 is correct.
The issue then comes in with how you actually capture the value. You can use a capturing group to be sure that you only ever get the value you care about.
Complete regex:
(£\d*.\d{2})
Sample code:
import re
r = re.compile("(£\d*.\d{2})")
match = r.findall("this is a value £28.99 (0.28/ml)")
if match: # may bring back an empty list; check for that here
print(match[0]) # uses the first group, and will print £28.99

If it's a string, you can do something like this:
x = "this is a value £28.99 (0.28/ml)"
x_list = x.split()
for i in x_list:
if "£" in i: #or if i.startswith("£") Credit – Jean-François Fabre
value=i
print(value)
>>>£28.99

You can try:
import re
t = "this is a value £28.99 (0.28/ml)"
r = re.sub(".*(£[\d.]+).*", r"\1", t)
print(r)
Output:
£28.99
Python Demo

Printing substrings' patterns from a string in Python

The input to this problem is a string and has a specific form. For example if s is a string then inputs can be s='3(a)2(b)' or s='3(aa)2(bbb)' or s='4(aaaa)'. The output should be a string, that is the substring inside the brackets multiplied by numerical substring value the substring inside the brackets follows.
For example,
Input ='3(a)2(b)'
Output='aaabb'
Input='4(aaa)'
Output='aaaaaaaaaaaa'
and similarly for other inputs. The program should print an empty string for wrong or invalid inputs.
This is what I've tried so far
s='3(aa)2(b)'
p=''
q=''
for i in range(0,len(s)):
#print(s[i],end='')
if s[i]=='(':
k=int(s[i-1])
while(s[i+1]!=')'):
p+=(s[i+1])
i+=1
if s[i]==')':
q+=k*p
print(q)
Can anyone tell what's wrong with my code?

A oneliner would be:
''.join(int(y[0])*y[1] for y in (x.split('(') for x in Input.split(')')[:-1]))
It works like this. We take the input, and split on the close paren
In [1]: Input ='3(a)2(b)'
In [2]: a = Input.split(')')[:-1]
In [3]: a
Out[3]: ['3(a', '2(b']
This gives us the integer, character pairs we're looking for, but we need to get rid of the open paren, so for each x in a, we split on the open paren to get a two-element list where the first element is the int (as a string still) and the character. You'll see this in b
In [4]: b = [x.split('(') for x in a]
In [5]: b
Out[5]: [['3', 'a'], ['2', 'b']]
So for each element in b, we need to cast the first element as an integer with int() and multiply by the character.
In [6]: c = [int(y[0])*y[1] for y in b]
In [7]: c
Out[7]: ['aaa', 'bb']
Now we join on the empty string to combine them into one string with
In [8]: ''.join(c)
Out[8]: 'aaabb'

Try this:
a = re.findall(r'[\d]+', s)
b = re.findall(r'[a-zA-Z]+', s)
c = ''
for i, j in zip(a, b):
c+=(int(i)*str(j))
print(c)

Here is how you could do it:
Step 1: Simple case, getting the data out of a really simple template
Let's assume your template string is 3(a). That's the simplest case I could think of. We'll need to extract pieces of information from that string. The first one is the count of chars that will have to be rendered. The second is the char that has to be rendered.
You are in a case where regex are more than suited (hence, the use of re module from python's standard library).
I won't do a full course on regex. You'll have to do that by our own. However, I'll explain quickly the step I used. So, count (the variable that holds the number of times we should render the char to render) is a digit (or several). Hence our first capturing group will be something like (\d+). Then we have a char to extract that is enclosed by parenthesis, hence \((\w+)\) (I actually enable several chars to be rendered at once). So, if we put them together, we get (\d+)\((\w+)\). For testing you can check this out.
Applied to our case, a straight forward use of the re module is:
import re
# Our template
template = '3(a)'
# Run the regex
match = re.search(r'(\d+)\((\w+)\)', template)
if match:
# Get the count from the first capturing group
count = int(match.group(1))
# Get the string to render from the second capturing group
string = match.group(2)
# Print as many times the string as count was given
print count * string
Output:
aaa
Yeah!
Step 2: Full case, with several templates
Okay, we know how to do it for 1 template, how to do the same for several, for instance 3(a)4(b)? Well... How would we do it "by hand"? We'd read the full template from left to right and apply each template one by one. Then this is what we'll do with python!
Hopefully for us the re module has a function just for that: finditer. It does exactly what we described above.
So, we'll do something like:
import re
# Our template
template = '3(a)4(b)'
# Iterate through found templates
for match in re.finditer(r'(\d+)\((\w+)\)', template):
# Get the count from the first capturing group
count = int(match.group(1))
# Get the string to render from the second capturing group
string = match.group(2)
print count * string
Output:
aaa
bbbb
Okay... Just remains the combination of that stuff. We know we can put everything at each step in an array, and then join each items of this array at the end, no?
Let's do it!
import re
template = '3(a)4(b)'
parts = []
for match in re.finditer(r'(\d+)\((\w+)\)', template):
parts.append(int(match.group(1)) * match.group(2))
print ''.join(parts)
Output:
aaabbb
Yeah!
Step 3: Final step, optimization
Because we can always do better, we won't stop. for loops are cool. But what I love (it's personal) about python is that there is so much stuff you can actually just write with one line! Is it the case here? Well yes :).
First we can remove the for loop and the append using a list comprehension:
parts = [int(match.group(1)) * match.group(2) for match in re.finditer(r'(\d+)\((\w+)\)', template)]
rendered = ''.join(parts)
Finally, let's remove the two lines with parts populating and then join and let's do all that in a single line:
import re
template = '3(a)4(b)'
rendered = ''.join(
int(match.group(1)) * match.group(2) \
for match in re.finditer(r'(\d+)\((\w+)\)', template))
print rendered
Output:
aaabbb
Yeah! Still the same output :).
Hope it helped!

The value of 'p' should be refreshed after each iteration.
s='1(aaa)2(bb)'
p=''
q=''
i=0
while i<len(s):
if s[i]=='(':
k=int(s[i-1])
p=''
while(s[i+1]!=')'):
p+=(s[i+1])
i+=1
if s[i]==')':
q+=k*p
i+=1
print(q)

The code is not behaving the way I want it to behave. The problem here is the placement of 'p'. 'p' is the variable that adds the substring inside the ( )s. I'm repeating the process even after sufficient adding is done. Placing 'p' inside the 'if' block will do the job.
s='2(aa)2(bb)'
q=''
for i in range(0,len(s)):
if s[i]=='(':
k=int(s[i-1])
p=''
while(s[i+1]!=')'):
#print(i,'first time')
p+=s[i+1]
i+=1
q+=p*k
#print(i,'second time')
print(q)

what you want is not print substrings . the real purpose is most like to generate text based regular expression or comands.
you can parametrize a function to read it or use something like it:
The python library rstr has the function xeger() to do what you need by using random strings and only returning ones that match:
Example
Install with pip install rstr
In [1]: from __future__ import print_function
In [2]: import rstr
In [3]: for dummy in range(10):
...: print(rstr.xeger(r"(a|b)[cd]{2}\1"))
...:
acca
bddb
adda
bdcb
bccb
bcdb
adca
bccb
bccb
acda
Warning
For complex re patterns this might take a long time to generate any matches.

Excluding a specific string of characters in a str()-function

A small issue I've encountered during coding.
I'm looking to print out the name of a .txt file.
For example, the file is named: verdata_florida.txt, or verdata_newyork.txt
How can I exclude .txt and verdata_, but keep the string between? It must work for any number of characters, but .txt and verdata_ must be excluded.
This is where I am so far, I've already defined filename to be input()
print("Average TAM at", str(filename[8:**????**]), "is higher than ")

3 ways of doing it:
using str.split twice:
>>> "verdata_florida.txt".split("_")[1].split(".")[0]
'florida'
using str.partition twice (you won't get an exception if the format doesn't match, and probably faster too):
>>> "verdata_florida.txt".partition("_")[2].partition(".")[0]
'florida'
using re, keeping only center part:
>>> import re
>>> re.sub(".*_(.*)\..*",r"\1","verdata_florida.txt")
'florida'
all those above must be tuned if _ and . appear multiple times (must we keep the longest or the shortest string)
EDIT: In your case, though, prefixes & suffixes seem fixed. In that case, just use str.replace twice:
>>> "verdata_florida.txt".replace("verdata_","").replace(".txt","")
'florida'

Assuming you want it to split on the first _ and the last . you can use slicing and the index and rindex functions to get this done. These functions will search for the first occurrence of the substring in the parenthesis and return the index number. If no substring is found, they will throw a ValueError. If the search is desired, but not the ValueError, you can also use find and rfind, which do the same thing but always return -1 if no match is found.
s = 'verdata_new_hampshire.txt'
s_trunc = s[s.index('_') + 1: s.rindex('.')] # or s[s.find('_') + 1: s.rfind('.')]
print(s_trunc) # new_hampshire
Of course, if you are always going to exclude verdata_ and .txt you could always hardcode the slice as well.
print(s[8:-4]) # new_hampshire

You can leverage str.split() on strings. For example:
s = 'verdata_newyork.txt'
s.split('verdata_')
# ['', 'florida.txt']
s.split('verdata_')[1]
# 'florida.txt'
s.split('verdata_')[1].split('.txt')
['florida', '']
s.split('verdata_')[1].split('.txt')[0]
# 'florida'

You can just split string by dot and underscore like this:
string filename = "verdata_prague.txt";
string name = filename.split("."); //verdata_prague
name = name[0].split("_")[1]; //prague
or by replace function:
string filename = "verdata_prague.txt";
string name = filename.replace(".txt",""); //verdata_prague
name = name[0].replace("verdata_","")[1]; //prague

Regex Expression not matching correctly

I'm tackling a python challenge problem to find a block of text in the format xXXXxXXXx (lower vs upper case, not all X's) in a chunk like this:
jdskvSJNDfbSJneSfnJDKoJIWhsjnfakjn
I have tested the following RegEx and found it correctly matches what I am looking for from this site (http://www.regexr.com/):
'([a-z])([A-Z]){3}([a-z])([A-Z]){3}([a-z])'
However, when I try to match this expression to the block of text, it just returns the entire string:
In [1]: import re
In [2]: example = 'jdskvSJNDfbSJneSfnJDKoJIWhsjnfakjn'
In [3]: expression = re.compile(r'([a-z])([A-Z]){3}([a-z])([A-Z]){3}([a-z])')
In [4]: found = expression.search(example)
In [5]: print found.string
jdskvSJNDfbSJneSfnJDKoJIWhsjnfakjn
Any ideas? Is my expression incorrect? Also, if there is a simpler way to represent that expression, feel free to let me know. I'm fairly new to RegEx.

You need to return the match group instead of the string attribute.
>>> import re
>>> s = 'jdskvSJNDfbSJneSfnJDKoJIWhsjnfakjn'
>>> rgx = re.compile(r'[a-z][A-Z]{3}[a-z][A-Z]{3}[a-z]')
>>> found = rgx.search(s).group()
>>> print found
nJDKoJIWh

The string attribute always returns the string passed as input to the match. This is clearly documented:
string
The string passed to match() or search().
The problem has nothing to do with the matching, you're just grabbing the wrong thing from the match object. Use match.group(0) (or match.group()).

Based on xXXXxXXXx if you want upper letters with len 3 and lower with len 1 between them this is what you want :
([a-z])(([A-Z]){3}([a-z]))+
also you can get your search function with group()
print expression.search(example).group(0)

Python regular expression; why do the search & match appear to find alpha chars in a number string?

I'm running search below Idle, in Python 2.7 in a Windows Bus. 64 bit environment.
According to RegexBuddy, the search pattern ('patternalphaonly') should not produce a match against a string of digits.
I looked at "http://docs.python.org/howto/regex.html", but did not see anything there that would explain why the search and match appear to be successful in finding something matching the pattern.
Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong, or misunderstanding?
>>> import re
>>> numberstring = '3534543234543'
>>> patternalphaonly = re.compile('[a-zA-Z]*')
>>> result = patternalphaonly.search(numberstring)
>>> print result
<_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x02CEAD40>
>>> result = patternalphaonly.match(numberstring)
>>> print result
<_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x02CEAD40>
Thanks

The star operator (*) indicates zero or more repetitions. Your string has zero repetitions of an English alphabet letter because it is entirely numbers, which is perfectly valid when using the star (repeat zero times). Instead use the + operator, which signifies one or more repetitions. Example:
>>> n = "3534543234543"
>>> r1 = re.compile("[a-zA-Z]*")
>>> r1.match(n)
<_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x07D85720>
>>> r2 = re.compile("[a-zA-Z]+") #using the + operator to make sure we have at least one letter
>>> r2.match(n)
Helpful link on repetition operators.

Everything eldarerathis says is true. However, with a variable named: 'patternalphaonly' I would assume that the author wants to verify that a string is composed of alpha chars only. If this is true then I would add additional end-of-string anchors to the regex like so:
patternalphaonly = re.compile('^[a-zA-Z]+$')
result = patternalphaonly.search(numberstring)
Or, better yet, since this will only ever match at the beginning of the string, use the preferred match method:
patternalphaonly = re.compile('[a-zA-Z]+$')
result = patternalphaonly.match(numberstring)
(Which, as John Machin has pointed out, is evidently faster for some as-yet unexplained reason.)