Finding correct regex to match pattern and extract sub string in python

Question

I have a text which can look like this:

36] Smarandache F. (Editor), Proceedings of the First International Conference on Neutrosophics, Univ. of New Mexico, Gallup Campus, NM, USA, 1-3 Dec. 2001, Xiquan, Phoenix, 2002

I want to extract:

Proceedings of the First International Conference on Neutrosophics

I have tried to use regex pattern as follows:

conference = re.search(",(.*)conference(.*),", str(r.lower()))

and I get only this as output: Proceedings of the First International

My text is going to be random but it will contain word like conference

My question is how can I develop pattern which can find word conference inside the text and extract the substring from first comma preceding the word conference to first comma after the word conference.

, xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx conference xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ,

Any help will be great

regex101.com/r/x1Cicp/1 you are matching it. See on the right Group 1, Group 2, Full match. Use name capturing group if you want to extract something specifically or work with the unnamed groups. — Tin Nguyen
– Tin Nguyen, Commented Aug 7, 2020 at 10:23
I get result in groups without the word conference. It is like splitting it on the word conference and get me result till end of the line this not what I want — Jaskaran Singh
– Jaskaran Singh, Commented Aug 7, 2020 at 10:24
Change the regex I linked from ,(.*)conference(.*), to ,(.*conference.*), and you'll see a group that has exactly what you want. You might want to do ,(.*?conference.*?), to have non-greedy/lazy matches. — Tin Nguyen
– Tin Nguyen, Commented Aug 7, 2020 at 10:25

The fourth bird · Accepted Answer · 2020-08-07 10:37:28Z

2

You could use a negated character class matching any char except a comma, and in between match Conference with a single capturing group.

You could match Conference starting with a capital C to get the result, or make the pattern case insensitive using re.IGNORECASE

If you use r.lower() you convert the string to lowercase, and the output will be this instead:

proceedings of the first international conference on neutrosophics

,\s*([^,]*\bConference\b[^,]*),

Regex demo

Example code:

import re
r = "36] Smarandache F. (Editor), Proceedings of the First International Conference on Neutrosophics, Univ. of New Mexico, Gallup Campus, NM, USA, 1-3 Dec. 2001, Xiquan, Phoenix, 2002"

conference = re.search(r",\s*([^,]*\bConference\b[^,]*),", r)
if conference:
    print(conference.group(1))

Output

Proceedings of the First International Conference on Neutrosophics

edited Aug 7, 2020 at 10:37

answered Aug 7, 2020 at 10:29

The fourth bird

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2 Comments

Jaskaran Singh Over a year ago

Thanks for the reply I see it running in the regex demo but not in my python interactive terminal its empty

The fourth bird Over a year ago

@JaskaranSingh I have added example code, you have to get value from group 1.

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