How can I search for, say, a sequence of 10 isprint characters in a given string in Python?
With GNU grep, I would simply do grep [[:print:]]{10}
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1 Answer
Since POSIX is not supported by Python re module, you have to emulate it with the help of character class.
You can use the one from the regular-expressions.info and add a limiting quantifier {10}:
[\x20-\x7E]{10}
See demo
Alternatively, you can use Matthew Barnett regex module that claims to support POSIX character classes (POSIX character classes are supported.).
5 Comments
Allan Tsai
This character class worked for me in Python 3
[`~!@#$%^&*()_=+\[\]{}\\\|;:\"\'<>.,/?] when using inside the re.sub() method
Wiktor Stribiżew
@Iota, that
[`~!@#$%^&*()_=+\[\]{}\\\|;:\"\'<>.,/?] only matches ASCII punctuation, it has nothing to do with the concept of "printable chars". So, if you were to use a POSIX character class, it would be [[:punct:]]. To match punctuation in Python, you can use [^\w\s], although there are better and more precise patterns.Allan Tsai
My mistake! I misread the
[[:print]] class as [[:punct]]. Appreciate your correction.
pabouk - Ukraine stay strong
The regex in the answer will not match Unicode non-ASCII characters like grep (GNU grep) does.
Wiktor Stribiżew
@pabouk-Ukrainestaystrong Then see the bottom of the answer. Just install the PyPi regex module (
pip install regex in the console/terminal) and then use import regex and pattern = regex.compile(r'[[:print:]]{10}').