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Extracting two strings from between two characters. Why doesn't my regex match and how can I improve it?

I'm learning about regular expressions and I to want extract a string from a text that has the following characteristic:
It always begins with the letter C, in either lowercase or
uppercase, which is then followed by a number of hexadecimal
characters (meaning it can contain the letters A to F and numbers
from 1 to 9, with no zeros included).
After those hexadecimal
characters comes a letter P, also either in lowercase or uppercase
And then some more hexadecimal characters (again, excluding 0).
Meaning I want to capture the strings that come in between the letters C and P as well as the string that comes after the letter P and concatenate them into a single string, while discarding the letters C and P
Examples of valid strings would be:
c45AFP2
CAPF
c56Bp26
CA6C22pAAA
For the above examples what I want would be to extract the following, in the same order:
45AF2 # Original string: c45AFP2
AF # Original string: CAPF
56B26 # Original string: c56Bp26
A6C22AAA # Original string: CA6C22pAAA
Examples of invalid strings would be:
BCA6C22pAAA # It doesn't begin with C
c56Bp # There aren't any characters after P
c45AF0P2 # Contains a zero
I'm using python and I want a regex to extract the two strings that come both in between the characters C and P as well as after P
So far I've come up with this:
(?<=\A[cC])[a-fA-F1-9]*(?<=[pP])[a-fA-F1-9]*
A breakdown would be:
(?<=\A[cC]) Positive lookbehind assertion. Asserts that what comes before the regex parser’s current position must match [cC] and that [cC] must be at the beginning of the string
[a-fA-F1-9]* Matches a single character in the list between zero and unlimited times
(?<=[pP]) Positive lookbehind assertion. Asserts that what comes before the regex parser’s current position must match [pP]
[a-fA-F1-9]* Matches a single character in the list between zero and unlimited times
But with the above regex I can't match any of the strings!
When I insert a | in between (?<=[cC])[a-fA-F1-9]* and (?<=[pP])[a-fA-F1-9]* it works.
Meaning the below regex works:
(?<=[cC])[a-fA-F1-9]*|(?<=[pP])[a-fA-F1-9]*
I know that | means that it should match at most one of the specified regex expressions. But it's non greedy and it returns the first match that it finds. The remaining expressions aren’t tested, right?
But using | means the string BCA6C22pAAA is a partial match to AAA since it comes after P, even though the first assertion isn't true, since it doesn't begin with a C.
That shouldn't be the case. I want it to only match if all conditions explained in the beginning are true.
Could someone explain to me why my first attempt doesn't produces the result I want? Also, how can I improve my regex?
I still need it to:
Not be a match if the string contains the number 0
Only be a match if ALL conditions are met
Thank you

To match both groups before and after P or p
(?<=^[Cc])[1-9a-fA-F]+(?=[Pp]([1-9a-fA-F]+$))
(?<=^[Cc]) - Positive Lookbehind. Must match a case insensitive C or c at the start of the line
[1-9a-fA-F]+ - Matches hexadecimal characters one or more times
(?=[Pp] - Positive Lookahead for case insensitive p or P
([1-9a-fA-F]+$) - Cature group for one or more hexadecimal characters following the pP
View Demo

Your main problem is you're using a look behind (?<=[pP]) for something ahead, which will never work: You need a look ahead (?=...).
Also, the final quantifier should be + not * because you require at least one trailing character after the p.
The final mistake is that you're not capturing anything, you're only matching, so put what you want to capture inside brackets, which also means you can remove all look arounds.
If you use the case insensitive flag, it makes the regex much smaller and easier to read.
A working regex that captures the 2 hex parts in groups 1 and 2 is:
(?i)^c([a-f1-9]*)p([a-f1-9]+)
See live demo.
Unless you need to use \A, prefer ^ (start of input) over \A (start of all input in multi line scenario) because ^ easier to read and \A won't match every line, which is what many situations and tools expect. I've used ^.

What is the use of second limit in the quantifier {m,n} in the regular expression in python if it used in a non-greedy way?

The regular expression in Python re.compile(r'\w{3,5}?') will match with any pattern that have at least three non-overlapping alpha-numeric and underscore characters. My question here 'is the second limit has any use in this non greedy use of quantifier {3,5}, i.e. even if the five is replaced by any other number the result would be same. i.e. re.compile(r'\w{3,5}?')=re.compile(r'\w{3,6}?')=re.compile(r'\w{3,7}?')=re.compile(r'\w{3,}?')
Can some one give me an example where the second limit find any use?

When a lazily quantified pattern appears at the end of the pattern, it matches the minimum amount of chars it needs to match to return a value. A 123(\w*?) will always yield no value inside Group 1 as *? matches zero or more chars, but as few as possible.
It means that \w{3,5}? regex will always match 3 word chars, and the second argument will be "ignored" as it is enough to match 3 occurrences of the word char.
If the lazy pattern is not at the end, the second argument is important.
See an example: Test: (\w{3,5}?)-(\d+) captures different amount of chars in Group 1 depending on how match word chars there are in the strings.

regex conditional matching

I am trying to use re.findall to find this pattern:
01-234-5678
regex:
(\b\d{2}(?P<separator>[-:\s]?)\d{2}(?P=separator)\d{3}(?P=separator)\d{3}(?:(?P=separator)\d{4})?,?\.?\b)
however, some cases have shortened to 01-234-5 instead of 01-234-0005 when the last four digits are 3 zeros followed by a non-zero digit.
Since there does't seem to be any uniformity in formatting I had to account for a few different separator characters or possibly none at all. Luckily, I have only noticed this shortening when some separator has been used...
Is it possible to use a regex conditional to check if a separator does exist (not an empty string), then also check for the shortened variation?
So, something like if separator != '': re.findall(r'(\b\d{2}(?P<separator>[-:\s]?)\d{3}(?P=separator)(\d{4}|\d{1})\.?\b)', text)
Or is my only option to include all the possibly incorrect 6 digit patterns then check for a separator with python?

If you want the last group of digits to be "either one or four digits", try:
>>> import re
>>> example = "This has one pattern that you're expecting, 01-234-5678, and another that maybe you aren't: 23:456:7"
>>> pattern = re.compile(r'\b(\d{2}(?P<sep>[-:\s]?)\d{3}(?P=sep)\d(?:\d{3})?)\b')
>>> pattern.findall(example)
[('01-234-5678', '-'), ('23:456:7', ':')]
The last part of the pattern, \d(?:\d{3})?), means one digit, optionally followed by three more (i.e. one or four). Note that you don't need to include the optional full stop or comma, they're already covered by \b.
Given that you don't want to capture the case where there is no separator and the last section is a single digit, you could deal with that case separately:
r'\b(\d{9}|\d{2}(?P<sep>[-:\s])\d{3}(?P=sep)\d(?:\d{3})?)\b'
# ^ exactly nine digits
# ^ or
# ^ sep not optional
See this demo.

It is not clear why you are using word boundaries, but I have not seen your data.
Otherwise you can shorten the entire this to this:
re.compile(r'\d{2}(?P<separator>[-:\s]?)\d{3}(?P=separator)\d{1,4}')
Note that \d{1,4} matched a string with 1, 2, 3 or 4 digits
If there is no separator, e.g. "012340008" will match the regex above as you are using [-:\s]? which matches 0 or 1 times.
HTH

Python Match xx-xxxx Numbers - Inaccurate Results

I'm quite weak in regex.
I'm trying to match a string which could be anthing like the following:
12-1234 *string*
12 1234 *string*
or
12 123 *string*
12-1234 *string*
As long as that pattern is found in a given string, then it should pass...
I figured this should be sufficient:
a = re.compile("^\d{0,2}[\- ]\d{0,4}$")
if a.match(dbfull_address):
continue
Yet I'm still getting inaccurate results:
12 string
I guess I need help with my regex :D

^\d{0,2}[\- ]\d{0,4}$
allows zero digits around the space/dash, so you probably want to use \d{1,2}[- ]\d{1,4}.
Also, you should remove the $ anchor, unless you only want to match lines where nothing follows the second number.
The ^ anchor is unnecessary as well since Python's .match() method implicitly anchors the regex match to the start of the string.

reobj = re.compile(r"^[\d]{0,2}[\s\-]+[\d]{0,4}.*?$", re.IGNORECASE | re.MULTILINE)
Options: dot matches newline; case insensitive; ^ and $ match at line breaks
Assert position at the beginning of a line (at beginning of the string or after a line break character) «^»
Match a single digit 0..9 «[\d]{2}»
Exactly 2 times «{2}»
Match the regular expression below and capture its match into backreference number 1 «(\.|\*)?»
Between zero and one times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy) «?»
Match either the regular expression below (attempting the next alternative only if this one fails) «\.»
Match the character “.” literally «\.»
Or match regular expression number 2 below (the entire group fails if this one fails to match) «\*»
Match the character “*” literally «\*»
Match the regular expression below and capture its match into backreference number 2 «([\d]{2})?»
Between zero and one times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy) «?»
Match a single digit 0..9 «[\d]{2}»
Exactly 2 times «{2}»

What does "?:" mean in a Python regular expression?

Below is the Python regular expression. What does the ?: mean in it? What does the expression do overall? How does it match a MAC address such as "00:07:32:12:ac:de:ef"?
re.compile(([\dA-Fa-f]{2}(?:[:-][\dA-Fa-f]{2}){5}), string)

It (?:...) means a set of non-capturing grouping parentheses.
Normally, when you write (...) in a regex, it 'captures' the matched material. When you use the non-capturing version, it doesn't capture.
You can get at the various parts matched by the regex using the methods in the re package after the regex matches against a particular string.
How does this regular expression match MAC address "00:07:32:12:ac:de:ef"?
That's a different question from what you initially asked. However, the regex part is:
([\dA-Fa-f]{2}(?:[:-][\dA-Fa-f]{2}){5})
The outer most pair of parentheses are capturing parentheses; what they surround will be available when you use the regex against a string successfully.
The [\dA-Fa-f]{2} part matches a digit (\d) or the hexadecimal digits A-Fa-f], in a pair {2}, followed by a non-capturing grouping where the matched material is a colon or dash (: or -), followed by another pair of hex digits, with the whole repeated exactly 5 times.
p = re.compile(([\dA-Fa-f]{2}(?:[:-][\dA-Fa-f]{2}){5}))
m = p.match("00:07:32:12:ac:de:ef")
if m:
m.group(1)
The last line should print the string "00:07:32:12:ac:de" because that is the first set of 6 pairs of hex digits (out of the seven pairs in total in the string). In fact, the outer grouping parentheses are redundant and if omitted, m.group(0) would work (it works even with them). If you need to match 7 pairs, then you change the 5 into a 6. If you need to reject them, then you'd put anchors into the regex:
p = re.compile(^([\dA-Fa-f]{2}(?:[:-][\dA-Fa-f]{2}){5})$)
The caret ^ matches the start of string; the dollar $ matches the end of string. With the 5, that would not match your sample string. With 6 in place of 5, it would match your string.

Using ?: as in (?:...) makes the group non-capturing during replace. During find it does'nt make any sense.
Your RegEx means
r"""
( # Match the regular expression below and capture its match into backreference number 1
[\dA-Fa-f] # Match a single character present in the list below
# A single digit 0..9
# A character in the range between “A” and “F”
# A character in the range between “a” and “f”
{2} # Exactly 2 times
(?: # Match the regular expression below
[:-] # Match a single character present in the list below
# The character “:”
# The character “-”
[\dA-Fa-f] # Match a single character present in the list below
# A single digit 0..9
# A character in the range between “A” and “F”
# A character in the range between “a” and “f”
{2} # Exactly 2 times
){5} # Exactly 5 times
)
"""
Hope this helps.

It does not change the search process. But it affects the retrieval of the group after the match has been found.
For example:
Text:
text = 'John Wick'
pattern to find:
regex = re.compile(r'John(?:\sWick)') # here we are looking for 'John' and also for a group (space + Wick). the ?: makes this group unretrievable.
When we print the match - nothing changes:
<re.Match object; span=(0, 9), match='John Wick'>
But if you try to manually address the group with (?:) syntax:
res = regex.finditer(text)
for i in res:
print(i)
print(i.group(1)) # here we are trying to retrieve (?:\sWick) group
it gives us an error:
IndexError: no such group
Also, look:
Python docs:
(?:...)
A non-capturing version of regular parentheses. Matches whatever regular expression is inside the parentheses, but the substring matched by the group cannot be retrieved after performing a match or referenced later in the pattern.
the link to the re page in docs:
https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html

(?:...) means a non cature group. The group will not be captured.