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4.2.4 Regular Expression Objects

Compiled regular expression objects support the following methods and attributes:

 

match(

string[, pos[, endpos]])

If zero or more characters at the beginning of string match this regular expression, return a corresponding MatchObject instance. Return None if the string does not match the pattern; note that this is different from a zero-length match.

Note: If you want to locate a match anywhere in string, use search() instead.

The optional second parameter pos gives an index in the string where the search is to start; it defaults to 0. This is not completely equivalent to slicing the string; the '^' pattern character matches at the real beginning of the string and at positions just after a newline, but not necessarily at the index where the search is to start.

The optional parameter endpos limits how far the string will be searched; it will be as if the string is endpos characters long, so only the characters from pos to endpos - 1 will be searched for a match. If endpos is less than pos, no match will be found, otherwise, if rx is a compiled regular expression object, rx.match(string, 0, 50) is equivalent to rx.match(string[:50], 0).

 

search(

string[, pos[, endpos]])

Scan through string looking for a location where this regular expression produces a match, and return a corresponding MatchObject instance. Return None if no position in the string matches the pattern; note that this is different from finding a zero-length match at some point in the string.

The optional pos and endpos parameters have the same meaning as for the match() method.

 

split(

string[, maxsplit = 0])

Identical to the split() function, using the compiled pattern.

 

findall(

string)

Identical to the findall() function, using the compiled pattern.

 

finditer(

string)

Identical to the finditer() function, using the compiled pattern.

 

sub(	repl, string[, count = 0])

Identical to the sub() function, using the compiled pattern.

 

subn(

repl, string[, count = 0])

Identical to the subn() function, using the compiled pattern.

flags

The flags argument used when the RE object was compiled, or 0 if no flags were provided.

groupindex

A dictionary mapping any symbolic group names defined by (?P<id>) to group numbers. The dictionary is empty if no symbolic groups were used in the pattern.

pattern

The pattern string from which the RE object was compiled.

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