Extract from text with python and regex

Question

Let's say we have text within which some quotes are stored in the form:

user:quote

we can have multiple quotes within a text.

Agatha Drake: She records her videos from the future? What is she, a
  f**ing time lord? Is she Michael J. Fox?

Harvey Spencer: This is just like that one movie where that one guy
  changed one tiny, little thing in his childhood to stop the girl of
  his dreams from being a crackhead in the future!

How can i extract the quotes (She records her videos from ..., This is just like that one movie....) from the text in python?

I tried

re.findall('\S\:\s?(.*)', text)

But it's not doing the job.

https://regex101.com/r/vH63Go/1

How can I do it in Python?

Is a user always at the start of a line? (?m)^[^:\n]+:\s?((?:.+\n?)*) would be my approach then. — Sebastian Proske
– Sebastian Proske, Commented Nov 19, 2016 at 20:23

Sebastian Proske · Accepted Answer · 2016-11-19 20:36:01Z

1

If your string is following the consistent format of user at the start of a line and double newlines ending a quote, you could use this:

(?m)^[^:\n]+:\s?((?:.+\n?)*)

It uses multiline mode and matches the start of a line, followed by characters that are neither : nor newline, folllowed by :. Then captures all following lines with content.

Here's a demo on regex101.

answered Nov 19, 2016 at 20:36

Sebastian Proske

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