Regex and python match

Question

Hello all and sorry to bother with another regex question... This time the problem I have is that I'm unable to match or exclude some strings out of a regexp:

Strings to compare against:

EVENT DATA
EVENT
EVENT SEC-1193 10222
EVENT META

I want this regex to match only EVENT SEC-1193 10222 and it's like this:

EVENT\s[\w'-]*\s[\w'-]*

The problem is that it matches everything... Any help in the reghell would be highly appreciated

can you be more specific about your matching criteria? Why don't you just match the string exactly, if that's all you need to do? — Red Alert
– Red Alert, Commented Dec 5, 2013 at 19:31
* means zero or more ...this reminds me of that regex quote... now you have 2 problems ... — Joran Beasley
– Joran Beasley, Commented Dec 5, 2013 at 19:32
Second Zoran's comment above...the * operand returns all the string with 0 or more occurrences of EVENT\s[\w'-]*\s[\w'-]. That's why it matches everything — py_script
– py_script, Commented Dec 5, 2013 at 19:40

Ashwini Chaudhary · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-05 19:31:37Z

2

Use + instead of *:

>>> r = re.compile(r"EVENT\s[\w'-]+\s[\w'-]+")
>>> r.search("EVENT DATA")
>>> r.search("EVENT")
>>> r.search("EVENT SEC-1193 10222")
<_sre.SRE_Match object at 0x8e04100>
>>> r.search("EVENT META")

answered Dec 5, 2013 at 19:31

Ashwini Chaudhary

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Comments

Prashant Kumar · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-05 19:54:20Z

1

EVENT\s[\w'-]+\s[0-9]+

Seems to be a bit better. Try testing your regex's with http://gskinner.com/RegExr/ or http://regex101.com/

edited Dec 5, 2013 at 19:54

Prashant Kumar

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answered Dec 5, 2013 at 19:36

Kevin Busch

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2 Comments

Martino Dino Over a year ago

Indeed looks better :D

Kevin Busch Over a year ago

web.mit.edu/hackl/www/lab/turkshop/slides/regex-cheatsheet.pdf An outstanding reference.

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