Python Syntax Error: invalid syntax - if-codesyntax appears to be correct

Question

I'm using Requests to scrape a website. The content of the html gets successfully saved in the variable r but in the if-statement I get the said error

[...]
for line in r:  
    link = re.findall(r ("""onclick="window.location.href='([^'])'""",line)
    if link: 
        print ('something')
        cmd = ('some commands to get info page') 
        call(cmd,shell=True)

        download = re.sub(something)
        cmd = ('some commands to download the file') 
        call(cmd,shell=True)
r.close()

I looked it up in the documentation and the syntax appears to be correct. I then suspected the error to be in the line before. Here I search for the line with the phrase onclick="window.location.href=' and want the link that follows it to be processed (in the code afterwards). The () encapsuled part should be what is returned, right?

Does anybody see an error? in

Why the bracket after 'r'? "re.findall(r ("

Don
– Don

2012-06-15 13:41:01 +00:00
Commented Jun 15, 2012 at 13:41 — Don
– Don, Commented Jun 15, 2012 at 13:41

score 2 · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-15 13:53:51Z

2

Perhaps the brackets?

#                1  2                                                 2                   
link = re.findall(r ("""onclick="window.location.href='([^'])'""",line)

It looks like you forgot to close the bracket for findall.

edited Jun 15, 2012 at 13:53

answered Jun 15, 2012 at 13:37

user1444165

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

4 Comments

Jasi Over a year ago

omg you are right. After the second """ a bracket was missing! I'm so sorry, but it took me almost an hour to research the syntax to get this line. I just overlooked it. Btw.:The brackets around the strings are now neccessary in the newest python version.

Gareth Latty Over a year ago

@Jasi Using Python 3.2, I have never seen a need to use brackets like that, why are they needed?

user1444165 Over a year ago

@Jasi OK, good to know! In older versions of python, Don would be correct. In fact, if you try to use r(""" """) for raw strings, you'd get a NameError.

Jasi Over a year ago

@Lattyware I just started with python and didn't question the brackets. After I tried to work through an older python tutorial I got an error for not using brackets. I googled for it and added them because they were said to be neccessary now.

R Hyde · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-15 13:45:28Z

0

If you separate the pattern to its own line then it makes it clear that the problem is really just one of quoting. Try separating it like this:

for line in r:
    pattern = r"onclick=\"window.location.href='([^'])'"
    link = re.findall(pattern, line)

answered Jun 15, 2012 at 13:45

R Hyde

10.4k1 gold badge35 silver badges28 bronze badges

2 Comments

Jasi Over a year ago

I should really try to do it this way. Also: Way more readable. Thank you.

Jeff Tratner Over a year ago

@Jasi you can go even farther and use re.VERBOSE, add whitespace and comments between elements of your regular expression which will get stripped out when you compile.

Gareth Latty · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-15 13:48:24Z

0

You appear to have both mismatched parenthesis and mismatched quotation marks. Below, I've lined them up. Does this work as expected?

#                1  2                                  3    3           21
#                    123        4                              4321
link = re.findall(r ("""onclick="window.location.href='([^'])'\"""",line))

edited Jun 15, 2012 at 13:48

Gareth Latty

89.5k18 gold badges183 silver badges187 bronze badges

answered Jun 15, 2012 at 13:42

Andy♦

50.8k62 gold badges181 silver badges240 bronze badges

1 Comment

Jasi Over a year ago

The escape \ shouldn't be neccessary because of the triple " The " just before the word window is part of the string. - correct me if I'm wrong

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Python Syntax Error: invalid syntax - if-codesyntax appears to be correct

3 Answers 3

4 Comments

2 Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

4 Comments

2 Comments

1 Comment

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related