Python Regular Expressions

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Replace (Sub)

re.sub(pattern, repl, string[, count, flags]) (docs)

Basic alphanum-only example

> s = 'John!Paul/9{}George'
> re.sub('[^0-9a-zA-Z]', '_', s)
'John_Paul_9__George'


Replace extra spaces in XML

import re
re_p = """\s{2,}"""

xml1 = """
<outer>
    <inner attr="foo">
        some text
    </inner>
<outer>
"""
xml2 = re.sub(re_p, ' ', xml1).replace('> <', '><')
print xml2


Split

Split on One or More Spaces

>>> import re
>>> s = 'SAN DIEGO CA  92037      PAGE 2'
>>> re.split('\s+', s)
['SAN', 'DIEGO', 'CA', '92037', 'PAGE', '2']


import re
def re_ungreedy(re_, s):
    r = re_.replace('%s', '(.*?)')
    return re.search(r, s).groups()
re_ = "<h2>%s</h2>"
H2List = re_ungreedy(re_, '<h2>one</h2><h2>two</h2>')


References

http://docs.python.org/library/re.html
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