Python macro in regular expression

Question

In the below case i have used "|" condition in matching multiple search patterns and replacing all the search patterns with the value. It worked fine. But Does python has any MACRO type of thing where i can write all the patterns in it and call that in the search pattern? and replace all the patterns at once. Because i have to write almost 20 to 30 search patterns. Please help me in implementing this.

Thanks in Advance.

import re

st = '''<h5>Reglar</h5>
<h5>Lateral</h5>
<h5>Daily</h5>
<h5>Weekly</h5>
<h5>Monthly</h5>
<h5>Quaterly</h5>
<h5>Yearly</h5>
<h5>Halfyearly</h5>'''

vr = re.sub(r'(?i)<h5>(Lateral|Halfyearly|Monthly)</h5>', "<h5>FINAL</h5>", st)
print vr

Not sure what you mean. Do you want to replace a list of search terms? — user849425
– user849425, Commented Feb 14, 2013 at 7:04
Are you looking for a way to pre-compile your patterns? (re.compile)? — Yevgen Yampolskiy
– Yevgen Yampolskiy, Commented Feb 14, 2013 at 7:06
In general, you don't want to use regular expressions to parse HTML. Look into an actual HTML parser such as BeautifulSoup. — Joel Cornett
– Joel Cornett, Commented Feb 14, 2013 at 7:10

lgautier · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-14 14:40:35Z

2

Python does not have macros.

I am not certain to understand for sure what you are after but:

Strings containing the regular expression can be build programmatically:

frequncy_str = ('Lateral', 'Daily', 'Weekly', 'Monthly')
re_str = '(?i)<h5>(' + '|'.join(frequency_str) + ')</h5>'

For better performances, if the match is going to be performed several times one should compile the regular expression:

  re_pat = re.compile(re_str)

edited Feb 14, 2013 at 14:40

answered Feb 14, 2013 at 7:07

lgautier

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1 Comment

Fla-Hyd Over a year ago

Firstly Thanks for the reply.Think I am planning to replace a set of search patterns with same value (In the above example i have replaced all the search patterns with "FINAL" value). I tried using the above code but i am not getting through.

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