Why is my python regex pattern not matching the whole string?

Question

I wish to match a url string with my regex pattern: r'.+'. I expect this pattern to fully match the url string, but that's not happening. I'm getting the following output:

Output:

url string: https://stackoverflow.com/users/signup?ssrc=head&returnurl=%2fusers%2fstory%2fcurrent
matched string: <re.Match object; span=(0, 85), match='https://stackoverflow.com/users/signup?ssrc=head&>

Clearly, the match leaves out a chunk of the url string by the end. My pattern doesn't match the returnurl=%2fusers%2fstory%2fcurrent part of the url string. Why is this happening? Should I be using something other than r'.+' for my pattern?

Code:

def getQueryParameters(url):
    print(f"url string: {url}")
    pattern = re.compile(r'.+')
    match = pattern.search(url)
    print(f'matched string: {match}')

if __name__ == '__main__':
    url = "https://stackoverflow.com/users/signup?ssrc=head&returnurl=%2fusers%2fstory%2fcurrent"
    getQueryParameters(url)

pauliner · Accepted Answer · 2019-09-29 01:14:35Z

3

Printing the Match Object itself doesn't display the whole match. If you print match.group(0) instead of match, you will see your regex does match the whole string.

answered Sep 29, 2019 at 1:14

pauliner

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1 Comment

Karl Knechtel Over a year ago

Notice that there is no closing quote mark on the match='... part of the match object's representation. This is the re module's way of indicating that the string is incomplete, while still limiting the representation's length so it's not too annoying when you print it.

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