Regex capture group definition in Python

Question

I am having some issues with the following python. I am trying to match strings that are inside single quotes, but only capture the contents, that is, drop the single quotes themselves.

In [144]: tststr = "'hello'"

In [145]: res = re.search(r"'(.*)'", tststr)

In [146]: res.group()
Out[146]: "'hello'"

I would expect the output to only contain "hello" without the single quotes.

Thanks for your help!

Avinash Raj · Accepted Answer · 2015-04-15 11:12:58Z

3

You need to specify the group index number of the group which actually stores the captured characters. Without the index number, res.group() will print all the matched characters in your case, it was 'hello' .

res.group(1)

Ex:

>>> tststr = "'hello'"
>>> res = re.search(r"'(.*)'", tststr)
>>> res.group(1)
'hello'

edited Apr 15, 2015 at 11:12

answered Apr 15, 2015 at 11:06

Avinash Raj

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