We Keep Coding

Python windows path regex

I've spent the last two hours figuring this out. I have this string:
C:\\Users\\Bob\\.luxshop\\jeans\\diesel-qd\\images\\Livier_11.png
I am interested in getting \\Livier_11.png but it seems impossible for me. How can I do this?

I'd strongly recommend using the python pathlib module. It's part of the standard library and designed to handle file paths. Some examples:
>>> from pathlib import Path
>>> p = Path(r"C:\Users\Bob\.luxshop\jeans\diesel-qd\images\Livier_11.png")
>>> p
WindowsPath('C:/Users/Bob/.luxshop/jeans/diesel-qd/images/Livier_11.png')
>>> p.name
'Livier_11.png'
>>> p.parts
('C:\\', 'Users', 'Bob', '.luxshop', 'jeans', 'diesel-qd', 'images', 'Livier_11.png')
>>> # construct a path from parts
...
>>> Path("C:\some_folder", "subfolder", "file.txt")
WindowsPath('C:/some_folder/subfolder/file.txt')
>>> p.exists()
False
>>> p.is_file()
False
>>>
Edit:
If you want to use regex, this should work:
>>> s = "C:\\Users\\Bob\\.luxshop\\jeans\\diesel-qd\\images\\Livier_11.png"
>>> import re
>>> match = re.match(r".*(\\.*)$", s)
>>> match.group(1)
'\\Livier_11.png'
>>>

You can use this
^.*(\\\\.*)$
Explanation
^ - Anchor to start of string.
.* - Matches anything except new line zero or time (Greedy method).
(\\\\.*) - Capturing group. Matches \\ followed any thing except newline zero or more time.
$ - Anchor to end of string.
Demo
P.S - For such kind of this you should use standard libraries available instead of regex.

If you can clearly say that "\\" is a delimiter (does not appear in any string except to separate the strings) then you can say:
str = "C:\\Users\\Bob\\.luxshop\\jeans\\diesel-qd\\images\\Livier_11.png"
spl = str.split(“\\”) #split the string
your_wanted_string = spl[-1]
Please note this is a very simple way to do it and not always the best way! If you need to do this often or if something important depends on it use a library!
If you are just learning to code then this is easier to understand.

How to combine multiple regex into single one in python?

I'm learning about regular expression. I don't know how to combine different regular expression to make a single generic regular expression.
I want to write a single regular expression which works for multiple cases. I know this is can be done with naive approach by using or " | " operator.
I don't like this approach. Can anybody tell me better approach?

You need to compile all your regex functions. Check this example:
import re
re1 = r'\d+\.\d*[L][-]\d*\s[A-Z]*[/]\d*'
re2 = '\d*[/]\d*[A-Z]*\d*\s[A-Z]*\d*[A-Z]*'
re3 = '[A-Z]*\d+[/]\d+[A-Z]\d+'
re4 = '\d+[/]\d+[A-Z]*\d+\s\d+[A-Z]\s[A-Z]*'
sentences = [string1, string2, string3, string4]
for sentence in sentences:
generic_re = re.compile("(%s|%s|%s|%s)" % (re1, re2, re3, re4)).findall(sentence)

To findall with an arbitrary series of REs all you have to do is concatenate the list of matches which each returns:
re_list = [
'\d+\.\d*[L][-]\d*\s[A-Z]*[/]\d*', # re1 in question,
...
'\d+[/]\d+[A-Z]*\d+\s\d+[A-z]\s[A-Z]*', # re4 in question
]
matches = []
for r in re_list:
matches += re.findall( r, string)
For efficiency it would be better to use a list of compiled REs.
Alternatively you could join the element RE strings using
generic_re = re.compile( '|'.join( re_list) )

I see lots of people are using pipes, but that seems to only match the first instance. If you want to match all, then try using lookaheads.
Example:
>>> fruit_string = "10a11p"
>>> fruit_regex = r'(?=.*?(?P<pears>\d+)p)(?=.*?(?P<apples>\d+)a)'
>>> re.match(fruit_regex, fruit_string).groupdict()
{'apples': '10', 'pears': '11'}
>>> re.match(fruit_regex, fruit_string).group(0)
'10a,11p'
>>> re.match(fruit_regex, fruit_string).group(1)
'11'
(?= ...) is a look ahead:
Matches if ... matches next, but doesn’t consume any of the string. This is called a lookahead assertion. For example, Isaac (?=Asimov) will match 'Isaac ' only if it’s followed by 'Asimov'.
.*?(?P<pears>\d+)p
find a number followed a p anywhere in the string and name the number "pears"

You might not need to compile both regex patterns. Here is a way, let's see if it works for you.
>>> import re
>>> text = 'aaabaaaabbb'
>>> A = 'aaa'
>>> B = 'bbb'
>>> re.findall(A+B, text)
['aaabbb']
>>>
further read read_doc

If you need to squash multiple regex patterns together the result can be annoying to parse--unless you use P<?> and .groupdict() but doing that can be pretty verbose and hacky. If you only need a couple matches then doing something like the following could be mostly safe:
bucket_name, blob_path = tuple(item for item in matches.groups() if item is not None)

Regex to retrieve the last few characters of a string

Regex to retrieve the last portion of a string:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lima.doodlejump
I'm looking to retrieve the string followed by id=
The following regex didn't seem to work in python
sampleURL = "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lima.doodlejump"
re.search("id=(.*?)", sampleURL).group(1)
The above should give me an output:
com.lima.doodlejump
Is my search group right?

Your regular expression
(.*?)
will not work because, it will match between zero and unlimited times, as few times as possible (becasue of the ?). So, you have the following choices of RegEx
(.*) # Matches the rest of the string
(.*?)$ # Matches till the end of the string
But, you don't need RegEx at all here, simply split the string like this
data = "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lima.doodlejump"
print data.split("id=", 1)[-1]
Output
com.lima.doodlejump
If you really have to use RegEx, you can do like this
data = "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lima.doodlejump"
import re
print re.search("id=(.*)", data).group(1)
Output
com.lima.doodlejump

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned urlparse yet...
>>> s = "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lima.doodlejump"
>>> urlparse.urlparse(s)
ParseResult(scheme='https', netloc='play.google.com', path='/store/apps/details', params='', query='id=com.lima.doodlejump', fragment='')
>>> urlparse.parse_qs(urlparse.urlparse(s).query)
{'id': ['com.lima.doodlejump']}
>>> urlparse.parse_qs(urlparse.urlparse(s).query)['id']
['com.lima.doodlejump']
>>> urlparse.parse_qs(urlparse.urlparse(s).query)['id'][0]
'com.lima.doodlejump'
The HUGE advantage here is that if the url query string gets more components then it could easily break the other solutions which rely on a simple str.split. It won't confuse urlparse however :).

Just split it in the place you want:
id = url.split('id=')[1]
If you print id, you'll get:
com.lima.doodlejump
Regex isn't needed here :)
However, in case there are multiple id=s in your string, and you only wanted the last one:
id = url.split('id=')[-1]
Hope this helps!

This works:
>>> import re
>>> sampleURL = "https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lima.doodlejump"
>>> re.search("id=(.+)", sampleURL).group(1)
'com.lima.doodlejump'
>>>
Instead of capturing non-greedily for zero or more characters, this code captures greedily for one or more.

Python: Getting text of a Regex match

I have a regex match object in Python. I want to get the text it matched. Say if the pattern is '1.3', and the search string is 'abc123xyz', I want to get '123'. How can I do that?
I know I can use match.string[match.start():match.end()], but I find that to be quite cumbersome (and in some cases wasteful) for such a basic query.
Is there a simpler way?

You can simply use the match object's group function, like:
match = re.search(r"1.3", "abc123xyz")
if match:
doSomethingWith(match.group(0))
to get the entire match. EDIT: as thg435 points out, you can also omit the 0 and just call match.group().
Addtional note: if your pattern contains parentheses, you can even get these submatches, by passing 1, 2 and so on to group().

You need to put the regex inside "()" to be able to get that part
>>> var = 'abc123xyz'
>>> exp = re.compile(".*(1.3).*")
>>> exp.match(var)
<_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x691738>
>>> exp.match(var).groups()
('123',)
>>> exp.match(var).group(0)
'abc123xyz'
>>> exp.match(var).group(1)
'123'
or else it will not return anything:
>>> var = 'abc123xyz'
>>> exp = re.compile("1.3")
>>> print exp.match(var)
None

How can I get part of regex match as a variable in python?

In Perl it is possible to do something like this (I hope the syntax is right...):
$string =~ m/lalala(I want this part)lalala/;
$whatIWant = $1;
I want to do the same in Python and get the text inside the parenthesis in a string like $1.

If you want to get parts by name you can also do this:
>>> m = re.match(r"(?P<first_name>\w+) (?P<last_name>\w+)", "Malcom Reynolds")
>>> m.groupdict()
{'first_name': 'Malcom', 'last_name': 'Reynolds'}
The example was taken from the re docs

See: Python regex match objects
>>> import re
>>> p = re.compile("lalala(I want this part)lalala")
>>> p.match("lalalaI want this partlalala").group(1)
'I want this part'

import re
astr = 'lalalabeeplalala'
match = re.search('lalala(.*)lalala', astr)
whatIWant = match.group(1) if match else None
print(whatIWant)
A small note: in Perl, when you write
$string =~ m/lalala(.*)lalala/;
the regexp can match anywhere in the string. The equivalent is accomplished with the re.search() function, not the re.match() function, which requires that the pattern match starting at the beginning of the string.

import re
data = "some input data"
m = re.search("some (input) data", data)
if m: # "if match was successful" / "if matched"
print m.group(1)
Check the docs for more.

there's no need for regex. think simple.
>>> "lalala(I want this part)lalala".split("lalala")
['', '(I want this part)', '']
>>> "lalala(I want this part)lalala".split("lalala")[1]
'(I want this part)'
>>>

import re
match = re.match('lalala(I want this part)lalala', 'lalalaI want this partlalala')
print match.group(1)

import re
string_to_check = "other_text...lalalaI want this partlalala...other_text"
p = re.compile("lalala(I want this part)lalala") # regex pattern
m = p.search(string_to_check) # use p.match if what you want is always at beginning of string
if m:
print m.group(1)
In trying to convert a Perl program to Python that parses function names out of modules, I ran into this problem, I received an error saying "group" was undefined. I soon realized that the exception was being thrown because p.match / p.search returns 0 if there is not a matching string.
Thus, the group operator cannot function on it. So, to avoid an exception, check if a match has been stored and then apply the group operator.
import re
filename = './file_to_parse.py'
p = re.compile('def (\w*)') # \w* greedily matches [a-zA-Z0-9_] character set
for each_line in open(filename,'r'):
m = p.match(each_line) # tries to match regex rule in p
if m:
m = m.group(1)
print m