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Split string if separator is not in-between two characters

I want to write a script that reads from a csv file and splits each line by comma except any commas in-between two specific characters.
In the below code snippet I would like to split line by commas except the commas in-between two $s.
line = "$abc,def$,$ghi$,$jkl,mno$"
output = line.split(',')
for o in output:
print(o)
How do I write output = line.split(',') so that I get the following terminal output?
~$ python script.py
$abc,def$
$ghi$
$jkl,mno$

You can do this with a regular expression:
In re, the (?<!\$) will match a character not immediately following a $.
Similarly, a (?!\$) will match a character not immediately before a dollar.
The | character cam match multiple options. So to match a character where either side is not a $ you can use:
expression = r"(?<!\$),|,(?!\$)"
Full program:
import re
expression = r"(?<!\$),|,(?!\$)"
print(re.split(expression, "$abc,def$,$ghi$,$jkl,mno$"))

One solution (maybe not the most elegant but it will work) is to replace the string $,$ with something like $,,$ and then split ,,. So something like this
output = line.replace('$,$','$,,$').split(',,')
Using regex like mousetail suggested is the more elegant and robust solution but requires knowing regex (not that anyone KNOWS regex)

Try regular expressions:
import re
line = "$abc,def$,$ghi$,$jkl,mno$"
output = re.findall(r"\$(.*?)\$", line)
for o in output:
print('$'+o+'$')
$abc,def$
$ghi$
$jkl,mno$

First, you can identify a character that is not used in that line:
c = chr(max(map(ord, line)) + 1)
Then, you can proceed as follows:
line.replace('$,$', f'${c}$').split(c)
Here is your example:
>>> line = '$abc,def$,$ghi$,$jkl,mno$'
>>> c = chr(max(map(ord, line)) + 1)
>>> result = line.replace('$,$', f'${c}$').split(c)
>>> print(*result, sep='\n')
$abc,def$
$ghi$
$jkl,mno$

Splitting a string using re module of python

I have a string
s = 'count_EVENT_GENRE in [1,2,3,4,5]'
#I have to capture only the field 'count_EVENT_GENRE'
field = re.split(r'[(==)(>=)(<=)(in)(like)]', s)[0].strip()
#o/p is 'cou'
# for s = 'sum_EVENT_GENRE in [1,2,3,4,5]' o/p = 'sum_EVENT_GENRE'
which is fine
My doubt is for any character in (in)(like) it is splitting the string s at that character and giving me first slice.(as after "cou" it finds one matching char i:e n). It's happening for any string that contains any character from (in)(like).
Ex : 'percentage_AMOUNT' o/p = 'p'
as it finds a matching char as 'e' after p.
So i want some advice how to treat (in)(like) as words not as characters , when splitting occurs/matters.
please suggest a syntax.

Answering your question, the [(==)(>=)(<=)(in)(like)] is a character class matching single characters you defined inside the class. To match sequences of characters, you need to remove [ and ] and use alternation:
r'==?|>=?|<=?|\b(?:in|like)\b'
or better:
r'[=><]=?|\b(?:in|like)\b'
You code would look like:
import re
ss = ['count_EVENT_GENRE in [1,2,3,4,5]','coint_EVENT_GENRE = "ROMANCE"']
for s in ss:
field = re.split(r'[=><]=?|\b(?:in|like)\b', s)[0].strip()
print(field)
However, there might be other (easier, or safer - depending on the actual specifications) ways to get what you want (splitting with space and getting the first item, use re.match with r'\w+' or r'[a-z]+(?:_[A-Z]+)+', etc.)
If your value is at the start of the string and starts with lowercase ASCII letters, and then can have any amount of sequences of _ followed with uppercase ASCII letters, use:
re.match(r'[a-z]+(?:_[A-Z]+)*', s)
Full demo code:
import re
ss = ['count_EVENT_GENRE in [1,2,3,4,5]','coint_EVENT_GENRE = "ROMANCE"']
for s in ss:
fieldObj = re.match(r'[a-z]+(?:_[A-Z]+)*', s)
if fieldObj:
print(fieldObj.group())

If you want only the first word of your string, then this should do the job:
import re
s = 'count_EVENT_GENRE in [1,2,3,4,5]'
field = re.split(r'\W', s)[0]
# count_EVENT_GENRE

Is there anything wrong with using split?
>>> s = 'count_EVENT_GENRE in [1,2,3,4,5]'
>>> s.split(' ')[0]
'count_EVENT_GENRE'
>>> s = 'coint_EVENT_GENRE = "ROMANCE"'
>>> s.split(' ')[0]
'coint_EVENT_GENRE'
>>>

re.match is returning true on two different strings

I am using re.match function of python to compare two strings by ignoring few characters like this:
import re
url = "/ChessBoard_x16_y16.bmp/xyz"
if re.match( '/ChessBoard_x.._y..\.bmp', url ):
print("true")
else:
print("false")
Problem#1: the output is true but I want false here because the url has something extra after .bmp Problem#2: I have used two dots here to ignore the value 16 (x16 & y16) but in fact this value can contain any number of digits like x8, x16, x256 etc. So what should I do to ignore this complete value consisting of any number of digits?

Try the regex
'/ChessBoard_x[\d]+_y[\d]+\.bmp$'
A small demo (Also try on Regex101)
>>> import re
>>> pat = re.compile('/ChessBoard_x[\d]+_y[\d]+\.bmp$')
>>> url = "/ChessBoard_x162_y162.bmp"
>>> pat.match(url).group()
'/ChessBoard_x162_y162.bmp'
>>> url = "/ChessBoard_x16_y16.bmp/xyz"
>>> pat.match(url).group()
>>> # Does not match

Problem 1: You need to specify that you want the string to terminate at the end of the regex. The $ operator does that:
re.match("/ChessBoard_x.._y..\.bmp$", url)
Problem 2: What you want is one or more digits. The \d character class matches digits, + will match one or more of them. I replace the two dots with \d+ therefore:
re.match("/ChessBoard_x\d+_y\d+\.bmp$", url)

Need help extracting data from a file

I'm a newbie at python.
So my file has lines that look like this:
-1 1:-0.294118 2:0.487437 3:0.180328 4:-0.292929 5:-1 6:0.00149028 7:-0.53117 8:-0.0333333
I need help coming up with the correct python code to extract every float preceded by a colon and followed by a space (ex: [-0.294118, 0.487437,etc...])
I've tried dataList = re.findall(':(.\*) ', str(line)) and dataList = re.split(':(.\*) ', str(line)) but these come up with the whole line. I've been researching this problem for a while now so any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

try this one:
:(-?\d\.\d+)\s
In your code that will be
p = re.compile(':(-?\d\.\d+)\s')
m = p.match(str(line))
dataList = m.groups()
This is more specific on what you want.
In your case .* will match everything it can
Test on Regexr.com:
In this case last element wasn't captured because it doesnt have space to follow, if this is a problem just remove the \s from the regex

This will do it:
import re
line = "-1 1:-0.294118 2:0.487437 3:0.180328 4:-0.292929 5:-1 6:0.00149028 7:-0.53117 8:-0.0333333"
for match in re.finditer(r"(-?\d\.\d+)", line, re.DOTALL | re.MULTILINE):
print match.group(1)
Or:
match = re.search(r"(-?\d\.\d+)", line, re.DOTALL | re.MULTILINE)
if match:
datalist = match.group(1)
else:
datalist = ""
Output:
-0.294118
0.487437
0.180328
-0.292929
0.00149028
-0.53117
-0.0333333
Live Python Example:
http://ideone.com/DpiOBq
Regex Demo:
https://regex101.com/r/nR4wK9/3
Regex Explanation
(-?\d\.\d+)
Match the regex below and capture its match into backreference number 1 «(-?\d\.\d+)»
Match the character “-” literally «-?»
Between zero and one times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy) «?»
Match a single character that is a “digit” (ASCII 0–9 only) «\d»
Match the character “.” literally «\.»
Match a single character that is a “digit” (ASCII 0–9 only) «\d+»
Between one and unlimited times, as many times as possible, giving back as needed (greedy) «+»

Given:
>>> s='-1 1:-0.294118 2:0.487437 3:0.180328 4:-0.292929 5:-1 6:0.00149028 7:-0.53117 8:-0.0333.333'
With your particular data example, you can just grab the parts that would be part of a float with a regex:
>>> re.findall(r':([\d.-]+)', s)
['-0.294118', '0.487437', '0.180328', '-0.292929', '-1', '0.00149028', '-0.53117', '-0.0333.333']
You can also split and partition, which would be substantially faster:
>>> [e.partition(':')[2] for e in s.split() if ':' in e]
['-0.294118', '0.487437', '0.180328', '-0.292929', '-1', '0.00149028', '-0.53117', '-0.0333.333']
Then you can convert those to a float using try/except and map and filter:
>>> def conv(s):
... try:
... return float(s)
... except ValueError:
... return None
...
>>> filter(None, map(conv, [e.partition(':')[2] for e in s.split() if ':' in e]))
[-0.294118, 0.487437, 0.180328, -0.292929, -1.0, 0.00149028, -0.53117, -0.0333333]

A simple oneliner using list comprehension -
str = "-1 1:-0.294118 2:0.487437 3:0.180328 4:-0.292929 5:-1 6:0.00149028 7:-0.53117 8:-0.0333333"
[float(s.split()[0]) for s in str.split(':')]
Note: this is simplest to understand (and pobably fastest) as we are not doing any regex evaluation. But this would only work for the particular case above. (eg. if you've to get the second number - in the above not so correctly formatted string would need more work than a single one-liner above).

Python string regular expression

I need to do a string compare to see if 2 strings are equal, like:
>>> x = 'a1h3c'
>>> x == 'a__c'
>>> True
independent of the 3 characters in middle of the string.

You need to use anchors.
>>> import re
>>> x = 'a1h3c'
>>> pattern = re.compile(r'^a.*c$')
>>> pattern.match(x) != None
True
This would check for the first and last char to be a and c . And it won't care about the chars present at the middle.
If you want to check for exactly three chars to be present at the middle then you could use this,
>>> pattern = re.compile(r'^a...c$')
>>> pattern.match(x) != None
True
Note that end of the line anchor $ is important , without $, a...c would match afoocbarbuz.

Your problem could be solved with string indexing, but if you want an intro to regex, here ya go.
import re
your_match_object = re.match(pattern,string)
the pattern in your case would be
pattern = re.compile("a...c") # the dot denotes any char but a newline
from here, you can see if your string fits this pattern with
print pattern.match("a1h3c") != None
https://docs.python.org/2/howto/regex.html
https://docs.python.org/2/library/re.html#search-vs-match

if str1[0] == str2[0]:
# do something.
You can repeat this statement as many times as you like.
This is slicing. We're getting the first value. To get the last value, use [-1].
I'll also mention, that with slicing, the string can be of any size, as long as you know the relative position from the beginning or the end of the string.